Moon Trek II Section 31
by ewink
Summary: Having been repaired from their last mission, the crew of the USS Sisko is on routine border patrol when they get a distress call from a mysterious ship. Come to find out this ship is a Starfleet Intelligence ship. The questions get raised when it's found
1. Prelude

PRELUDE 

_Captain's Log: Stardate 60101.4. The USS Sisko has been assigned to patrol an area of disputed space near the Federation/Cardassian border. It should be relatively uneventful. Thanks to the toll from the Dominion War, the Cardassians don't have the military power right now to invade an uninhabited planet, much less any inside Federation space._

_Things here on the Sisko are finally back to normal. After spending almost 6 weeks in dry dock being repaired we are finally out in space again. I for one couldn't be happier. I took the time to visit San Francisco with Akane and Gosnell. We stopped by Starfleet headquarters and said hello to Rear Admiral Happosai. He splashed me with cold water and felt me up, tried to feel up Akane, and was happy he found a drinking buddy in reference to Gosnell. That's all well and good, as long as he doesn't invite him aboard for a slumber party._

Ranma sipped his coffee and just stared at his computer. His logs have been incredibly boring lately, but he didn't think it would get so bad that he would start to include his vacation into the official log.

Nifty Star Trek door chirp here 

"Come in." Ranma called.

His door slid open and Akane walked in.

"Hi!" Ranma smiled.

"You scare the hell out of me lately, Ranma." Akane stated, rather bluntly, as she sat in the seat across from Ranma.

"What? Why?"

Akane leaned back and pulled out a cigarette. "Do you mind?"

Ranma shook his head.

"Tendo to Security. Please disable the fire alarm in the captain's ready room." Akane stated.

"Yes ma'am." Mousse's voice replied.

"So I scare you?" Ranma handed Akane a lighter he had picked up in California.

"Mmm hmm." Akane puffed.

"I suppose I'm the reason you smoke so much, huh?"

Akane sat up. "Yes. You are."

"Explain."

Akane took in a deep drag and leaned back again. "You're being nice to me."

Ranma chuckled. "And that's scary?"

Akane nodded. "What's the deal? I mean you were never really MEAN to me." Akane thought back for a second as she took another drag. "Well, you were sometimes. But most of the time you and I were pretty damned indifferent to each other."

Ranma spun in his chair and faced his window. "Things change."

"Such as?"

"Let's just say..." Ranma said as he spun back around. "Let's just say I realize that I shouldn't take you for granted.

"The last mission made me realize that you really never know what you have until it's gone."

Akane could just stare at Ranma. "I've had to have been kidnapped fifty times before hand and you just NOW realized that?"

Ranma grew a half smile. "You'd be the first to note how thick headed I can be."

Akane laughed. "Well you are."

Ranma nodded. "I've never really gotten to tell you this."

Akane almost slid out of her seat. _Is he going to say it?_

"Akane. I care about you. A lot. I'm sorry I've never told you before. I just – well you know."

Akane shook her head. He WAS going to say it and it was going to be on her terms. "No, I don't know."

Ranma groaned. This was a lot easier when he practiced on the EMH. The EMH even seemed a little less awkward even though he was male.

"I'm not good at expressing my feelings. You should understand. You are the same way."

Akane nodded in silent agreement.

"So." Ranma paused. The words were on the tip of his tongue. He knew what he wanted to say. He had the words. He had rehearsed this moment for the last six weeks. What the hell was wrong with him?

Ranma knew that if he didn't say he'd seem even more stupid than he would if he did say it. He knew she felt the same way about him. Gosnell and he had gone over it hundreds of times.

Ranma would rather Akane say it first, but he knew it wasn't her way. He was going to have to be a man. He was going to have to be the one who say it first. He would have this day.

"Akane –"Ranma started. "I lo-"

His communicator chirped.

"Saotome here." Ranma replied almost a little too anxiously.

"Nihao Ranma! Ship getting distress call! Explosion in dilithium matrix! Ship need help! We closest!"

"Set a course. I'm on my way." Ranma replied.

He looked to Akane who was fuming. "Excuse me."

Ranma darted out of the ready room.

Akane just sat there. "Shampoo. It's ALWAYS Shampoo!"

Akane got up and went around to the other side of the desk. She started punching things into Ranma's computer.

"Computer, request medical information system. How can the CMO relieve a bridge officer from duty and have her confined somewhere?"

The computer began to spit information up onto the display. Akane at first just grinned. She then began to laugh. Then, much to her own surprise and chagrin she burst into full Kuno style cackle.

She stopped, cleared her throat and walked out of the ready room.

Once on the bridge she took a look around. Sitting at his helm station was Ryouga.

Once he noticed that Akane was looking at him he blushed and gave her one of those 'I'm a little wimp who won't tell you I love you because I turn into the little pig you've been sleeping with and loving it even more since you started to sleep naked' waves. Akane waved back oblivious to Ryouga's embarrassment. What else was new though?

Next to Ryouga at the Operations station she made note of Lt. Commander Mina Aino. _She's cute._ Akane thought. _But Ranma doesn't really care for blondes so I am good there. I think._

Swinging back a little, to the captain's left was Lt. Commander Raye Hino. Akane thought she was pretty and she didn't really trust her after the incident in 10-Forward, but she seemed more interested in Ranma's girl half than anything else. Akane chose not to worry. The likelihood of Ranma getting wet onboard was slim to none.

As Akane checked out the next station her stomach growled. Shampoo bugged her THAT much. Also could have been the 3 chili cheese dogs she had for lunch, but she was content on blaming it on Shampoo.

Behind the captain's chair was the tactical station where Mousse was stationed. Surprisingly he's been pretty good at that station. Once Ranma duct taped his glasses around his head that is. At first Ranma got a little bit too carried away with it and put the duct tape over his nose and eyes.

Akane had gotten pretty good are resuscitating people though, so all was good.

On the back wall of the bridge there were several other miscellaneous stations staffed by people whose names were not really important. Akane figured that if they didn't say anything they weren't important enough to have names.

Akane noted that Ranma was standing in the middle of the bridge. He appeared to be chatting with someone on the main viewer. She assumed that it was the captain of the distressed ship. They appeared to be discussing what was wrong with his ship.

"-you could let us borrow a couple of engineers and some dilithium we should be able to get underway to a star base within a couple of hours." The man on the viewer finished.

"No problem." Ranma replied. "Glad to help. We should be there within the hour. Were there any serious injuries?"

"Eh, some plasma burns. But we have a medical staff. They just didn't bother giving us any engineers." He replied.

Ranma nodded, but was confused. "What kind of mission are you on that you have more medical staff than engineers?"

The man appeared to be looking to someone on the starboard side of the bridge. He then turned back to Ranma.

"The nature of our mission is classified. We picked up what appeared to be a Cardassian patrol ship within 10 light-years, so we moved into the nebula to avoid detection. We should have figured that a super-neutrino nebula wouldn't be good for us."

Ranma laughed with the captain. "No. Usually isn't." Ranma let a couple of more chuckles out then continued. "Like I said, we will be there within the hour with any assistance you might need."

"Thanks again Captain Saotome. Minneapolis out."

The screen went back to the star field at warp effect. Akane looked over to Ranma.

"Walk to engineering with me?" Ranma asked her.

Akane nodded. As she walked toward the turbolift she could feel Shampoo's eyes burning a hole in the back of her neck.

The lift opened and the two got in. As she turned around she could verify that Shampoo was staring at her.

As the door closed Akane left something for Shampoo to remember her by.

A finger.

You know which one.

The lift began its way down. Ranma smiled at Akane. "That wasn't very nice."

Akane grinned back. "I'm not very nice. You should know that by now."

Ranma couldn't disagree with that.

The two rode the lift for a while in silence till Akane decided to ask a question.

"Don't you think that there is a whole hell of a lot of classified doings going on lately?"

Ranma hadn't really thought about it, but she was right. Two incidents of anything normally wouldn't be counted as suspicious, but when it's classified then it reeks of Starfleet Intelligence. Even classified, most information about missions is allowed to be given to ship captains, especially those coming to assist the classified ship.

However, when S-I is involved no one knows anything and if they do it's usually useless information that you could get from the Federation News Service.

"You're right." Ranma responded. "I sure as hell hope we're not getting ourselves caught in the middle of something."

The doors of the lift slid open and Akane and Ranma found themselves in engineering. Ranma grinned when he saw his Chief Engineer giving a speech to her crew.

He lost his grin though when he got into earshot.

"-and the girl said 'that's not my belly button!" All of the crew that didn't notice the captain laughed. The ones who did just stood there, trying to slowly back away.

Serena noticed the ones who weren't laughing. "What's wrong guys? Don't you get it? It wasn't her belly button it was her-"

"Commander." Ranma interrupted.

Serena spun around. She nearly screamed when she saw it was Ranma.

"Captain! Hi!" She said with a smile.

The slacker engineers who were listening to Serena's joke all scrambled like cockroaches after the lights have been turned on. Serena frowned at her lack of backup.

Akane just shook her head. Ranma decided to let it go.

"Commander, I need you to assemble an engineering team of you and three people to beam over to a ship and fix a burnt out dilithium matrix."

Serena looked confused. "Do what in the who now?"

Akane turned away so her snicker wouldn't be noticeable to Serena.

"Just assemble a team and report to transporter room one in 45 minutes please." Ranma instructed.

"Yes sir." Serena smiled.

Ranma and Akane proceeded to leave engineering as Serena made a pretty feeble attempt to bark orders.

"She's cute." Akane said.

"Eh. I don't care much for blondes." Ranma replied.

Akane smiled and let out a silent "Yes!"

**A COOL, SEMI PLAGIARIZED STAR TREK TYPE THEME SHOULD BE INSERTED HERE, THIS TIME ONE WITH WORDS LIKE ON ENTERPRISE! THAT SONG KICKS ARSE!**

IT'S BEEN A LONG ROAD GETTING FROM DENNY'S TO HERE... 

_**IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME BUT MY CHICKEN STRIPS ARE FINALLY NEAR...**_

_**I CAN TASTE THE CHANGE IN THE TEA RIGHT NOW**_

_**GOSNELL'S IN MY WAY**_

_**BUT HE'S NOT GOING TO KEEP ME DOWN NO MORE**_

_**NO I'M GONNA USE EQUAL**_

_**CAUSE I GOT LUNA TO MY RIGHT**_

_**GETTING THE EQUAL FOR ME**_

_**I'VE LUNA TO HELP ME**_

_**I CAN SWEETEN ANYTHING...**_

You get the point...

_Space. Final frontier. Shampoo XO of starship Sisko. Starship mission: to go where no one go before, to kill Akane Tendo, and to have Ranma all to Shampoo - HEY THAT'S NOT HOW IT GOES! - WO AI NI!!!_


	2. Questions

CHAPTER ONE: QUESTIONS 

The Sisko drops out of warp about 100 kilometers from the stranded USS Minneapolis. Ranma took some time to scream at Ryouga. 100 kilometers was much too close to be dropping out of warp at.

Ryouga returned the screams with some of his own. Once Shampoo had broken up the argument, Ranma started to admire the ship on his view screen.

The USS Minneapolis was a nice ship. Brand new. It was a class that wasn't very familiar to Ranma. Bullwinkle Class. She looked a lot like the Defiant class, but it had a third nacelle on the bottom and two torpedo launchers on her top and bottom. He'd also heard that the crew quarters were designed to be more comfortable.

The more Ranma thought about it the more he realized this ship was the same kind of ship that he had an encounter with six weeks ago.

Ranma had also heard that it was equipped with a cloaking device, but that could neither be confirmed nor denied by Starfleet. Ranma then knew for a fact that this was an S-I ship.

Wasn't any of his business though, he realized. His only issue was to get the ship up and running again. He hoped that he could get it done within a couple of hours.

With Serena leading the repair team though it may take longer.

Ranma decided that he would review the records of the crew that she was taking with her. Just to make sure that they could counter her – for lack of a better word – incompetence.

Ranma sighed as he read the performance reports of her team. Most of them were good workers, but he noted Serena noted 'major hunk' in their personnel file.

"And they call me a pervert." Ranma grumbled to himself.

In transporter room three Serena and her team gathered. Serena was a bit skittish about getting on the pad.

"What's wrong Commander?" The transporter chief asked.

"I don't like these things." Serena whimpered. "I was fine with them till I learned how they work."

The chief laughed. "A case of ignorance is bliss, eh?"

Serena stepped on the pad, unsure of whether or not she was just insulted.

"Energize." She mumbled.

The transporter chief complied and the team of four disappeared.

In the transporter room of the Minneapolis the chief of security was there to greet the group.

"Welcome to the Minneapolis." He grinned.

Serena nodded. "Thanks! Lt. Commander Serena Tsukino. Chief Engineer of the USS Sisko."

The two shook hands. "Lt. Commander James Staff, head of Security. I've been ordered to escort you guys down to engineering."

"Really?" Serena questioned. "We need a security escort?"

Staff nodded. "Certain things on board are what Starfleet considers 'sensitive'. No biggie, just procedure."

Serena shrugged. "Lead the way."

Staff walked out of the transporter room followed by the Sisko crew.

The five enter the turbolift.

Staff speaks up. "Engineering."

"Please verify retina for security clearance." The computer replied.

Staff looked into a microscope looking thing next to the lift controls. The computer chirped at him

"Security clearance verified." The computer informed him. The lift kicked into motion.

"So –"The next senior engineer, Lt. JC Devall, spoke up. "Your dilithium matrix was damaged in a nebula?"

Staff nodded. "Hell of an explosion. I'm surprised no one was hurt worse than they were!"

The engineer nodded. "Do you have any engineers?"

"A couple." Staff replied. "But they are currently being treated for third degree plasma burns and our CMO doesn't want them working till the dermal regeneration is complete."

"Good idea. I've had third degree plasma burns. You don't let them heal all the way they leave a scar." Lt. Devall rolled up his sleeve showing all interested a really nasty looking scar.

"ISH!" Serena screamed. She made a note to herself to delete the addition to his personal file. Scars were not something she cared for.

Devall laughed. "It starts to ache whenever it's about to rain."

Everyone but Serena laughed. She obviously didn't get it.

The doors to the lift opened. They walked into engineering. All of the monitors in engineering were blank. The warp core was also in a separate room. The door to where the warp core was locked and had one of those microscope looking things next to it.

Staff walked up to it. He shielded the panel from the others and punched in some numbers. He then put his eye up to the retina checker. The computer chirped at him and the doors slid open. Inside there was no one in the room except for two-uniformed security officers. There was also one other person who wasn't in a uniform, but he did have a Starfleet communicator on his shirt. He noticed the group and stood up.

Staff motioned for the engineering crew to go inside. He stood in the doorway.

"Just let these officers know when you are finished. You will also have to inform them if you need anything off of your ship. Communication off the ship isn't possible, except through secure channels." Staff smiled and walked away. The doors closed and chirped.

The man who wasn't in uniformed smiled at the group.

"Greetings. I'm Commander Chronister. Let me show you where the problem is." He smiles as the group follows him across a catwalk and to the warp core.

The warp core was one of new design. There was the normal large centerpiece, but it was bigger. There appeared to be two dilithium chambers, and two central cores. The warp core was dark, and appeared to be offline.

"What's with the catwalk?" Devall asks.

Chronister doesn't turn to the group. "We use an experimental energy in the warp core to power some of the basic systems of the ship. For it to work the core cannot touch any metal on the ship. Since we have the core offline right now we can extend the catwalk to come in contact with the core."

Devall was fascinated. He loved hearing about new technologies.

"I'm not trying to be nosey, just engineers curiosity, but what would happen if the catwalk was extended while the warp core was online?"

Chronister stopped. "Not sure, but it's so important that is doesn't happen that I assume it would be very bad."

Devall nodded.

The group got to the warp core. Chronister leaned back against the wall surrounding it. Devall looked to Chronister.

"This is going to take a while." He looked inside the dilithium chamber in question. "There is some major damage in here."

Chronister nodded and hit his comm badge. He relayed the information to someone unknown.

Serena's ears perked up. The voice sounded familiar but she thought nothing of it and began to help the others.

_Captain's log: Supplemental. It's been six hours since I sent the engineering crew over to the Minneapolis to assist in repairs. So far I haven't heard a word from them. I attempted to contact Commander Tsukino to no avail. I am preparing to hail the captain and see what's going on._

Ranma turns to Mousse. "Hail them."

Mousse complies. The captain of the Minneapolis appears on the screen.

"Yes Captain?" He says.

He appears to Ranma to have the attitude like Ranma was inconveniencing him. If there was anything Ranma hated that was someone copping an attitude with him.

"I was just wanting the status on my crew. They have been over there for over six hours."

"Yeah, sorry about that. The repairs are taking longer than we expected." The Captain replied. He seemed to be agitated that the repairs were taking as long as they did.

"That's fine. Why aren't I able to contact them?" Ranma queried

"Communications off the ship are only capable from approved stations. If you want I will have your chief engineer contact you with a status report."

Ranma's distrust in this guy was growing. "That'd be nice, thanks."

The man nodded and the communication was terminated.

Ranma spun around. "Can you scan them?" He asked Mousse.

Mousse shook his head. "No. They have some sort of weird hull plating that makes scans of the interior impossible."

Ranma plopped into his seat. What the hell was on that ship that they didn't want anyone to know about?

Mina chirped in. "Sir? Are you aware that the Minneapolis isn't listed in Starfleet's ship inventory?"

Ranma raised an eyebrow. "I am now. This must be an S-I ship."

Mousse's panel chirped.

"Commander Tsukino is hailing us."

Ranma nodded. "On screen."

Serena appeared on the view screen and waved at Mina and Raye.

Raye just shook her head while Mina waved back and smiled.

"Commander. How are things going?" Ranma asked.

"Slow." Serena replied. "We are having to rebuild the entire dilithium chamber."

"Why didn't you contact us and have us send you one?" Ranma asked.

"They say anything we replicate won't be compatible." Serena replied. "We shouldn't be too much longer. They want us off of here as much as we want to finish."

Ranma nodded. "Very well. If you are going to be longer than another hour let me know."

Serena nodded and the transmission is ended.

Raye turns to Ranma. "Did you see that guy standing over her shoulder?"

Ranma nodded. His head was getting tired from all of the nodding.

"Yeah I did."

Raye realized that Ranma didn't see her point. "Did you also notice that he wasn't wearing a uniform?"

Ranma didn't notice that. "That's odd."

Raye continued. "I also noticed that there was no one else in the area. She was obviously in engineering but I didn't see a warp core or anything! No monitors that were on, no engineers, nothing."

Ranma's mind was already in suspicious mode but Raye's observations just sent it into over drive. He looks to Mina and motions for her to go to his ready room. "You to, Counselor."

The three walk into his ready room. Ranma hops on to his desk while the other two have a seat on his couch.

"We've been scanning this sector for days. I want you to research the log files and tell me if you see anything strange. I also want you to find this 'Cardassian patrol ship' that 'forced' them into the nebula.

"I really do not like not knowing what's going on." Ranma concluded.

Raye and Mina nodded and left the room to get to work on their project. Ranma hit his communicator.

"Mousse – I want you to do a very long range scan. Find me a Cardassian ship."

"I'll try." Mousse replied. "But from everything I have seen in Starfleet security reports every Cardassian ship has been either dismantled for spare parts or is assigned to provide security to Cardassia Prime and their colonies. There aren't any Cardassian colonies in this sector."

"That's what I thought too, Mousse. Try anyway." Ranma answered dryly.

"Yes sir." Mousse replied.

Ranma wasn't a happy guy. He slid across his desk and plopped down into his seat.

"Computer. Get me Admiral Saotome."

Serena groaned. "What's wrong now?"

Devall turned to her. "I can't get the rebuilt processor to line up right."

The plain clothed Chronister walked up and looked into the chamber. He then checked something on his PADD and cocked his head. "Oh – it's not supposed to line up evenly." He scratched his head, unsure why it shouldn't, but the diagrams don't lie.

Devall and Serena just looked at him. "Why not?" Devall asked.

The man shrugged and cleared his throat. "Just the way it is."

Devall rolled his eyes. "I could have built a new warp core easier than this."

Serena laughed. Chronister did not.

"I need to contact Captain Saotome. It's been two hours. He wanted me to call him after one hour." Serena informed the man.

Chronister motioned for one of the security officers guarding the door to come over and take his place as he and Serena walked back across the catwalk.

Devall turned to one of the Sisko's engineers. "I think they are expecting us to steal something." The engineer just chuckled.

Chronister took Serena out of the warp core room and sat down at the computer.

"Computer - verify." He stuck his eye up to the retina scanner. The computer chirped that everything was okay. "Hail the Sisko." The computer complied and Shampoo appeared on the viewer.

Serena sat down at the console. "Commander, where is the Captain?"

"In meeting." Shampoo replied.

Chronister began to shift uncomfortably. The captain of a ship doesn't usually have a meeting without his first officer unless something is up. He hits his communicator and whispers something.

"Well." Serena continues. "We should be done in a few minutes. Rebuilding something as complex as a dilithium chamber is hard enough, but when it's a new breed and they won't give you schematics it becomes twice as hard."

Serena made her frustrations known to Chronister.

Shampoo nods. "Understand. Signal when ready to go."

Serena nods and the transmission ended.

Serena stands up but the man blocks her path. "It wasn't their business that the chamber is of a new design. Please don't provide that kind of information again."

Serena backs up slightly. "Sorry."

Chronister turns and takes her back and through the doors.

"Commander." Devall calls.

"Yeah?"

"We're finished. I think." He grumbles shooting a not so friendly look at Chronister and then to the security guard breathing down his neck.

The group walks off the catwalk. Chronister retracts the catwalk and then hits a few buttons. The warp core lights up and starts to do it's normal pulsing.

"Excellent. Many thanks." Chronister says. He motions to the security officers. "Please take them back to the transporter room."

The nod an acknowledgement and hurry the group off. Chronister hits his comm badge again.

"JC to CB. They're leaving."

"Finally. Shit." CB replies. "Is the cloak fixed?"

"Yeah." Chronister answered.

"Good. Once they are off the ship reengage the cloak."

"Right in front of the Sisko?" Chronister asks.

"They know we have a cloak. That moron Leblanc decloaked right in front of them when they retrieved LK." CB grumbles.

"You're the boss." Chronister replied, closing the communication.

"As soon as they are on board –"Ranma ordered, storming back onto the bridge. "I want them ALL in my ready room."

Shampoo acknowledge as she ran off to the transporter room.

"Ryouga!" Ranma bellowed.

"I'm right here!" Ryouga bellowed back. "No need for dramatics."

Ranma just ignored him. "I want you to get us back on our patrol course. I don't want them to think ANYTHING is amiss."

Ryouga rolled his eyes and complied.

Ryouga had actually gotten good at his job over the last few weeks. While they were in dry dock he went down to Starfleet HQ and spent hours in the flight simulator. Once he actually caused the simulator to self-destruct. Not a self destruct simulation, but actually caused the simulator to blow up. Starfleet is still trying to explain it.

After that, though, he had gotten really good at his piloting skills. Since then he had only gotten them lost once. Granted they had only been on two missions, but 50 percent was pretty damned good for him.

All he had to do now was work on navigating around the ship without ending up in a torpedo tube.

Ranma kept his eye on the view screen. He was waiting for that little wavy ship cloaking effect. It hadn't happened yet.

That was all he needed to confirm his suspicion.

That ship worked for Section 31.

**EARLIER**

"Figure anything out?" Ranma asked Mina and Raye.

"Actually we tried to answer two questions and ended up with about thirty." Raye answered.

"Check this out." Mina punched something into the conference room's computer. A map of Cardassian space appeared.

Raye stood up and went to the map. "This is a map of Cardassian space we got from Starfleet listening stations along the border.

"The range is 70 light-years into their space. Notice anything missing?"

Ranma saw the point. "Ships?"

Mina nodded. She pointed out a tiny little blip in the far upper left hand corner of the screen. "We found one. A Romulan cargo ship carrying medical supplies to Cardassia Prime."

Raye continued. "Cardassia has been buying medical supplies from anyone possible since the Dominion nearly wiped out the entire population of Cardassia Prime."

Mina took her turn. "The Romulan ship entered from Romulan space about 42 light years away from Federation space."

"So." Ranma concluded. "There was no Cardassian scout ship that they would be hiding from."

"No." Mina answered. "Also, this nebula that they went into was not neutrino based. It's just lithium gas and a little electromagnetic dust."

"We could float someone through in an environmental suit and they'd be fine." Raye finished.

"Wonderful." Ranma groaned.

Ranma wanted an easy explanation to this, but of course there wasn't any. And as usual his father was useless.

"Shampoo to Ranma." The intercom called out.

"Yes Commander." Ranma replied.

"Away team ready to come back."

Ranma stood and walked to the door as the two investigators followed. "Understood. I want you to meet them in the transporter room."

He and the two ladies stormed out onto the bridge.

Ranma continued to stare at the view screen. Mousse was the first on the bridge to speak.

"Ranma. The away team is on board. The Captain on the Minneapolis is hailing us."

Ranma acknowledge Mousse. "On screen."

The captain of the Minneapolis appeared. "Thank you for your help, Captain Saotome. Our dilithium chamber is good as new. Kudos to your team."

Some one from off screen cleared their throat.

"Oh, if I may ask, why did you contact Starfleet Command?"

Ranma smiled. "There's no activity out here. Just trying to see if we could get a new assignment."

The Minneapolis captain smiled back. "Any luck?"

Ranma shook his head no. "Apparently they like wasting resources."

The captain laughed. "Sounds like the admiralty. Take care and be safe. Minneapolis out."

Just prior to the connection being closed a man in plain clothes, a different one than before, walked across the back of the Minneapolis' bridge. Raye stood right up.

"DARIEN?" She screamed.

The man turned toward the view screen as the connection closed. The ship turned, warped off and out of view.

Ranma turned around. "Can you-"

Mousse interrupted him. "They cloaked once they got a light-year away."

"A LIGHT YEAR?" Ranma exclaimed. "How fast were they going?"

Mina checked her panel. "9.95."

Mousse looked as surprised as Ranma. "Cloak that works at that speed?" Mousse mumbled.

Ranma looked to Raye. "Did you know that man?"

Raye looked to Mina and then to Ranma. "I think so? But – he's dead."

Ranma looked to Mina. She shook her head. "I wasn't really paying attention."

Ranma turned to Mousse. "Send the visual recordings of the transmission from the Minneapolis to the conference room." He looked to Mina and Raye who knew what they had to do.

"Make sure you scan all the faces to see if they match anyone in the database." Mina nods and the two girls walk into the conference room as Serena and the engineering team, escorted by Shampoo, walked onto the bridge.

Ranma motioned for all of them to follow him into his ready room. "Mousse – you've got the bridge." Mousse acknowledged but chose to stay at his station instead of sitting in the captain's chair. Mousse really wasn't interested in command. He just wanted to fight.

Inside Ranma's ready room Ranma had Serena sit in the chair just across from his desk. The other engineers sat down on his couch while Shampoo stood beside him behind his desk.

"Anything – weird – happen over there?" Ranma asked.

Serena could just laugh. "It would have been weird for something that wasn't weird to happen."

"Explain." Shampoo ordered.

"Tell him, JC." Serena said.

JC cleared his throat. "Their chamber wasn't damaged by a dilithium explosion."

"So what did it?" Shampoo asked.

"An overload of neurons." Serena retorted.

JC stepped up next to Serena. "There wouldn't be anything on a Federation starship that would have neurons. Normally."

"Normally?" Ranma asked.

JC nodded and motioned for the captain's computer. Ranma nodded and JC began to bring something up.

"These are the schematics for a high speed cloaking device." JC pointed out. "I've always been interested in cloaking technology so I had a Romulan engineer friend of mine that I met at a conference during the war send me the beta schematics."

JC pointed some parts out on the schematic and continued. "Now, this isn't the OFFICIAL schematics because those would be classified to us, due to the treaty that banned Federation cloaking technology. But it does show the basics."

"Included how it's powered." Ranma guessed.

JC nodded. "Neuronic energy."

"Very unstable!" Shampoo noted.

JC nodded to her. "Yes ma'am. I realized what was up when I took my first integrity scan and detected the neurons. Plus the fact the warp core has to be completely ungrounded."

"Ungrounded?" Ranma asked. He wasn't even sure that was a word.

"For lack of a better term." Serena answered. "The warp core cannot come in contact with any of the ship. It's held in place by a gravity field."

"So the Federation did get their hands on a high speed cloak." Ranma concluded.

"Yes sir." JC replied. "Apparently not officially though."

Ranma nodded. "So what caused the explosion?"

JC thought about it for a second. "If they do have this type of cloaking device, I would say a power overload that fed back into the dilithium chamber."

"Like a phaser shot?" Ranma asked.

Shampoo looked at Ranma for a second. She was trying to figure out what Ranma was thinking. "Any way to track them?" Shampoo finally asked the engineers.

JC shook his head. "A normal warp core will leave a plasma and ionization trail. This warp core leaves more of a proton warp trail."

"And the concentration of protons in open space is so heavy that sorting out a proton warp trail would be like trying to get pee out of a swimming pool." Serena finished.

Ranma stuck his tongue out at Serena's analogy. "Thank you. If we need anymore information we will get a hold of you."

JC and Serena nodded in acknowledgement and walked out of the ready room with the rest of the engineering team. Ranma turned to Shampoo.

"What do you think?"

Shampoo shook her head. "Secrets never good."

Ranma agreed. "I find it hard to believe that an S-I ship would just have an explosion that would make them that vulnerable." Ranma stood up and the two walked onto the bridge.

At about the same time Raye and Mina walked out of the conference room. Neither of them looked happy. In fact it almost appeared that Raye had been crying.

"Commander?" Ranma asked Mina.

"It was him." Mina frowned. "The other man, the one who was with Serena in engineering is someone we don't know, but the Federation database lists both of them as being deceased."

Ranma sighed as he dropped down into his chair. He wasn't quite sure what to do.

He looked at the rest of the bridge crew. They were looking at him for instructions. He didn't have any though. It seemed obvious to him that the trail had gone cold. If they couldn't track down the ship then they couldn't get any answers.

He sighed again.

"Well, guess we will just run our patrol course." Ranma shrugged.

"But Captain –" Raye started.

Ranma looked at her. She didn't even really need a response because she knew what it was going to be.

"There is nothing we can do." Ranma informed Raye of what was more than obvious to her. "They're gone. It's obvious that they are part of Starfleet Intelligence, and as we all know they have their own agenda."

Raye nodded but continued anyway. "What if they have some illegal detainees? Like Darien!"

Ranma sighed once again. "If you have a plan I'd love to hear it."

Raye just sat there.

Nothing.

She didn't have any more of an idea what to do next then Ranma did. She didn't like not having any options and she didn't like knowing that Darien was alive even though she was at his funeral.

She personally reviewed the autopsy reports.

She saw his body.

She touched it.

She cried over it.

She visited his grave every time she possibly could.

Why would anyone go through so much trouble to fake a death? What was going on?

She wanted answers damn it.

She knew though that the only person who had the answers she wanted was gone. Long gone. Warp 9.95 will get you anywhere fast.

She continued to stare at the stars streaking by. She was happy he was alive but things were certainly simpler when he was dead.

But he wasn't dead.

The thought of the endless possibilities of what happened started to make her head hurt. Maybe if she got some sleep she would be able to think better.

She realized that going to sleep was the only good idea she had.

"Captain?" She turned to Ranma.

"Yes?"

"May I go to my quarters? I'm not feeling so hot."

Ranma nodded. "See Commander Tendo if you think you may be coming down with something."

Raye nodded. "I think it's just this." She flailed her arms toward the view screen.

"I understand." Ranma replied. "Take the rest of the day off. I'll see you in the morning."

Raye smiled and walked off the bridge and into the lift.

Once the door slid closed Ranma walked over to Mina.

"She's your friend. You know her better than I or anyone else here would. Check on her after your shift please."

Mina nodded. "Her and Darien – "Mina cut her self of for a second and then continued.

"Darien was the man we saw on the bridge. They were close."

Ranma nodded. He assumed that from how she reacted to seeing him.

Mina looked back to Ranma who was returning to his seat. "Captain?"

Ranma turned to her.

"He and Serena were even closer. It'd be in her best interest that for now we didn't mention this to her."

Ranma made one quick nod with his head as Mina turned back to her station and resumed her scanning of the border.

Ranma turned to Shampoo who was playing some sort of computer game.

"Where did you get that?" Ranma queried.

Shampoo, unsure of whether or not she was in trouble, sheepishly shrugged. "I think Ranma father put it on here."

Ranma just shrugged and turned back to the almost hypnotic motion of the stars at warp. He wanted a game to play.


	3. Memories

CHAPTER TWO: MEMORIES 

Chronister walked onto the bridge of the Minneapolis. The bridge was about the same layout as a defiant class bridge. There were a couple of stations that were refitted for the Minneapolis' assignment, but it was more or less the same.

The Minneapolis was a defiant class ship. S-I had it retrofitted to serve their purposes. Whatever that may be. Then they assigned it a new class. Just for the record. Even though the record was classified.

On the bridge there were only seven people. Five of them were wearing the standard Starfleet uniforms. The other two were decked out in civilian clothes.

They were operatives. With the kind of work that they were involved with S-I made sure that they were not linked to Starfleet or even the Federation. They only wore their communicators while they were on board Starfleet vessels.

While off the ship each operative has a communication device implanted into the underside of his or her wrists. The devices are very hard to detect because they are made from Borg biomaterial and simply show up as muscle on bio-scans.

Chronister looked around. In the captain's chair was the ships captain, Captain Steve Giles. Giles was a Brit and he loved saying British things like 'bloody hell' and such.

The other four uniformed people were the helmsman, the ops officer, the weapons officer and a security officer guarding the turbolift.

The other plain clothed man was sitting at a computer terminal.

He was playing solitaire.

"CB?" Chronister said.

The man spun around. It was Darien. Serena's old fiancée. The man she was destined to be with.

"What?" Darien grumbled.

"L & A want to talk to you. They're on subspace."

"Shit." Darien replied. "They're going to want to know what's going on with Lita."

Chronister leaned on a console near Darien.

"What are you going to tell them?"

Darien shook his head. "I don't know. I do know that we SHOULD NOT have allowed the Sisko crew on board."

Darien meant for his remark to be heard by the ship's captain.

"Bloody hell! You can float around empty space all you like. I'd prefer to be able to move. No harm no foul." The captain replied, not turning.

"You forget your place, Captain." Darien sneered.

"No, I think you for get YOUR place." Giles said, still focused on the front of the bridge. "Just because you are the bosses bitch boy doesn't mean you're in charge. So sod off wanker."

Darien begins to stand but Chronister stops him. "Don't forget who every armed officer on this ship is loyal to." Chronister reminds him.

Darien stands and pushes Chronister to the side. He starts to walk off the bridge to a room in the back of the bridge on the port side.

"I don't even understand why we have to deal with these Starfleet pricks." Darien grumbles as he walks off.

The captain turns and calls after him. "You're going to tell them that you were recognized, right?"

"Screw you, WANKER!" Darien yells back.

Giles can only laugh.

Chronister walks down the bridge and sits next to Giles. "Do I need to remind you that we are on the same side here?"

Giles chucks his thumb in Darien's direction. "I know whose side I'm on. Maybe you should have this chin-wag with him."

Chronister sighs and turns toward the viewer.

"She went berserk." Darien tells the male on the other end.

"Berserk is NOT an explanation." He growled back.

Darien bowed his head to collect his thoughts. He didn't care for being in trouble. He was always Section 31's best operative. Lately though nothing seemed to be going right.

"I was allowing her to become reacquainted with some of the bridge systems. She was looking at the long-range scans and noticed the Sisko. That's when she flipped out.

"She tackled a security guard and took his rifle. She shot me and the other bridge officers, took off to engineering, got into the cloak control room, and shot the generator.

"The spike of neurons caused the explosion in the dilithium chamber knocking out the cloak and throwing us out of warp."

Darien sighed. "A security team finally managed to stun her but not till after she set off the distress call."

"Why was the Sisko crew allowed to board?" The male asked.

Darien shook his head. "The CAPTAIN thought it would be a good idea to allow them to fix the chamber. Both of our engineers were killed in the explosion."

"Were we compromised?" He asked.

Darien shifted in his seat. "I don't think so. But-"

"BUT?" The male was now obviously agitated.

"Raye saw me."

Silence.

"How?" A female finally asked.

"I may have accidentally walked onto the bridge while Giles was talking with Saotome." Darien meekly replied.

There was some more silence while the two on the other end of the conversation talked amongst themselves.

Finally the male was the first to speak to Darien.

"We're coming out there."

Darien sat straight up. "Art- Uh, A- Are you sure that's wise?"

The male was very angry. "I don't see we have much of a choice. This mission has been one bungle after another. All we asked you to do was to try and help Lita get over her experience." The male sighed and relaxed his tone. "Then you go and get recognized by Raye. You KNOW she won't let this go."

Darien shook his head. "Saotome won't pursue this."

"You think?" A replied. "Do you think all of the engineers are as inept as Serena? Do you think none of them noticed the neurons in the chamber?"

"No." Darien sighed. He knew that A was right. This whole incident had generated questions. Even though Saotome was a very by the book captain, answering questions was in the book.

Nothing good could come from this.

A agreed.

"L and I will be boarding the Roseville within the hour. I want you to go back to the Sisko and monitor her status." A ordered. "Try not to crash into them. Assuming you can do something right for 22 hours."

The connection closed.

Darien stood up and kicked the chair.

Nothing good.

Darien proceeded onto the bridge. Giles stood up and turned to him.

"You look like you have orders."

"You're grasp of the obvious is amazing." Darien replied. "Intercept the Sisko. We're to monitor their status till A and L arrive aboard the Roseville."

Giles turned to his helmsman. "You heard the dobber."

The helmsman nodded and the Minneapolis changed course and headed back to the Sisko.

Giles turned back to Darien when he noticed that he was leaving the bridge.

"Where are you going?" He asked.

Darien turned to Giles. "If it was any of your business I'd tell you."

The lift doors shut.

Giles just turned to Chronister who shook his head.

Giles sat back in his chair. "Flid."

Lita's door chime went off. She didn't feel like answering.

Lita had spent the last six weeks recovering.

A couple of those weeks were from her death. Luckily Section 31's medical staff was extremely good. She was also lucky that she was blown out of the pirate ship out of direct sunlight, where the temperature was a frosty 800 below zero. The cold flash froze her body, her blood, the air in her lungs. It basically put her in suspended animation.

Lucky. Ha.

The Sisko had transported her directly into stasis, which preserved her frozen state until she could be revived.

Once the physical recovery was over she still had to deal with the mental recovery.

The implant Section 31 had put in her brain to improve her memory had faulted. And faulted badly it did.

It burned out the neuro-pathways that lead to the part of her brain that controls anger and deals with ethics and her conscience. Without those parts of her brain to control her behavior she because violent and, for lack of a better term, evil.

The implant served its purpose though. She remembered everything.

Now that those pathways were restored her ethics kicked in and processed all that she had done over the last two years.

And it hurt.

She remembers shooting, stabbing and killing people. She remembers torturing people till she got the information she needed. She remembered stealing and looting. She remembers pointless sex with pointless people.

What hurt her most is that she remembered trying to get information out of her best friend. The person who was nice to her when no one else with. The person who she fought side by side with for good. She remembers almost letting Brian kill her. She remembers what she almost did to Serena.

She also remembers what she did to Raye. She remembers standing there in the doorway to the cell and pulling the trigger.

She remembered Raye's body being slammed into the back of the cell by the blast.

She remembered Raye sliding to the floor in a heap.

She remembered making a joke about it.

She remembered not caring if Raye died.

She remembered it all.

Lita began to cry again. She has been crying a lot in the past six weeks. She cried for the people she hurt. She cried for the people she killed. She cried for her friends who thought she was some evil monster.

The more she cried the more she wished it would end. She cried because she wished the Sisko had never recovered her. She knew that if she was just floating out in space – a dead lifeless body – she wouldn't have to remember.

Over the past three weeks Section 31 had tried to get her back to work. She didn't want to. She just wanted to be left alone. If she was alone she could finish it. She wanted a phaser. Or a knife. Or anything sharp enough to cut through her wrists.

She'd tried it several times since she was put on board the Minneapolis. Every attempt failed. They put wristbands on her to keep her from slitting her wrists. They kept phasers away from her. She couldn't replicate aspirin or sleeping pills. She had no access to sickbay without an escort. She wasn't allowed within 10 meters of an airlock. She kept trying though - anything to end the pain. Anything that would end the memories that haunted her while she was awake, and the dreams that tormented her while she slept.

Originally, she thought that being with Darien would bring back good memories. It didn't.

Darien had changed.

She wondered if the same thing that affected her was affecting Darien.

Luna had convinced her otherwise. Luna acknowledged that the implant was an experiment and that only she was implanted.

She noticed how different Darien acted around others than he did around her. Darien seemed to care about her even after what she did to him. To him and Raye.

It was obvious though that Darien was one of them. He was one of the ones who will preach 'at all costs' to the bitter death. He ate, drank, breathed and slept Section 31.

Lita wasn't. She never was. She was in it because at first it was something she was good at. She'd infiltrate a group whose only purpose was the destruction of the Federation. With her help Section 31 would eliminate them so quietly that no one ever knew they existed.

Things were changing though. The Dominion war and the crew of Deep Space Nine brought Section 31 to the light. Those who move in shadows don't like light, so they were forced to change their tactics. Align themselves with groups who weren't the best roll models for the model citizens the Federation was supposed to be.

After they implanted her she managed to complete a couple of missions. She started to grow tired of the routine though. Infiltrate. Uncover. Kill. Over and over and over – same shit, different day. Finally she said the hell with it. After being picked up by a transport hired by Section 31 to bring her back to Earth she killed the captain and his crew. She took the transport and began to do things for herself. Eventually she ran into the pirate captain. He made her a job offer and she accepted. They did something different every day. It was fun - fun until that fateful day six and a half weeks ago - the day she was killed.

After the implant was removed Lita realized that these people must be made to pay. For the assignations and the murders. For the governments that they over threw. For the 'accidents' they arranged.

Lita wasn't the one to do it though. She hurt too much. She could barely finish a meal before she'd remember something she did to someone while they were eating. She'd start shaking and break down in tears.

No, she wasn't the one.

The key would be to get off the ship and tell someone.

But not just anyone.

Realistically everyone knew of Section 31. Their creation is listed in the most available document in the Federation. But no one would go up against them. They knew what would happen. They would be considered a threat to the Federation. Section 31 would then eliminate them in the name of 'protecting the Federation at all costs'.

No. Not just anyone.

Between her crying and her suicide attempts she came up with a plan.

She had to contact Serena.

Serena would believe her that it wasn't really her doing what she did.

Wouldn't she?

She also thought that if needed she could contact Mina. She hadn't done anything to Mina. The group never really kept in contact once they split up. Mina wouldn't know what was going on.

She began to cry again when she found out that Mina served on the same ship with Serena and Raye. She knew then that her plan wouldn't work. Surely Raye and Serena had passed on what she did and Mina would hate her now too.

Amy. What about Amy?

In her research she found out that Amy was in Starfleet as well. When she found out where she was she cried.

Amy had been posted to a ship on a deep space exploration mission. Mission duration: 20 years. 20 years in the wrong direction.

Lita couldn't wait 20 years. Every day Section 31 operated they way they did they went deeper and deeper underground. The deeper underground they got the more malevolent their tactics became.

No. 20 years was unacceptable.

When Darien took her to the bridge she played along. She'd be a good girl. She had to. She didn't have a plan. No matter what the guards were under orders to only stun her. No, she couldn't get them to kill her.

She got to take a look at some of the consoles. The computers were new but the Federation interfaces were the same as they had been before. She could easily pull up the long range sensor array.

Nothing suspicious. Just looking around. Seeing what's out there.

Just looking. No big deal.

Till she found something.

A ship.

Not just any ship.

Her ship.

Serena.

She had to get them over here. She couldn't hail them. They couldn't see her either. The Minneapolis was cloaked.

They had to uncloak.

She couldn't do it the easy way though. She didn't have the access codes.

She could move freely throughout most of the ship though. Including engineering.

If she could get to engineering she could take out the cloak.

Too much security though. It won't be easy.

The guard on the bridge. He seems like he's half asleep. He'd be easy to take out.

It's decided then.

She knew this would be a win-win situation. If she disabled the cloak then the Sisko would come to investigate and the Minneapolis would be found out.

She also knew that if she overloaded the core and caused a breach the ship would explode. Killing everyone. Including her. No more remembering. She'd be out one way or another.

She nodded to herself. She had to act fast before the Minneapolis got to far away.

She slinked close to the guard and smiled at him. The guard who wasn't used to a pretty woman smiling at him, smiled back one of those goofy high school grins until he was clocked upside his head. He hit the ground.

She grabbed his phaser. She shot everyone. She left the bridge and took the turbolift to engineering. Once there she shot everyone. She had to. The security alert had been sounded. Every security officer on the ship now had the sole purpose of stopping her.

Not killing her though.

She could complete her mission. She must complete her mission.

She entered the cloak control room.

She took aim.

She fired.

The charge went through the cloak generator causing no damage.

Or so she thought.

She heard an explosion. She ran out into main engineering and looked into the warp core room. She saw the warp core offline and three bodies. The emergency bulkheads slammed into place. Red alert was sounded. She could feel the ship drop out of warp. She could hear the ship cloaking. She grinned.

However, she knew there was one other thing she had to do for her plan to be a complete success.

She got to a communications panel.

"Initiate distress call." She ordered the computer.

It asked for a retina scan. She knew she didn't have access.

That guy did. The one she shot. He was second in charge of security. She drags him over to the computer and put his head on the retina scanner. She held his eye open.

"Distress call initiated." The computer informed her.

She smiled. Not a grin, but a real smile, for the first time in a long time. She succeeded.

It was then that she felt the familiar burning sensation. She was shot. She screamed. She fell to the ground. Several security officers put hand restraints on her and drug her back to her quarters.

She didn't care.

Things would be better shortly.

She even held onto her smile throughout the stunning. Throughout the officers piling on top of her. Throughout the dragging through the Minneapolis' corridors. Throughout being thrown into her quarters.

She still smiled.

She spent the ten hours after the Sisko's arrival staring at the ship through her window. It was the most beautiful ship she'd ever seen.

She made a little sign and put it in her other window.

It read 'help me'.

She began to cry again when the Minneapolis turned away and warped off.

She cried harder when she realized the ship had cloaked.

The door chimed again. She continued to ignore it but was forced to turn around when she heard the doors open.

"Didn't you hear me chiming?" Darien asked.

Lita just turned back to the window.

"L and A are on their way here." Darien informed her.

"LUNA!" Lita screamed. "ARTEMIS!"

"You know we aren't –"She wouldn't let him finish.

"I'm not one of you any more. FUCK your rules."

Darien sighed and sat at the foot of her bed. Lita scooted as far away from him as she could while still staying in the window.

"Lita."

"Don't you mean LK?" She smugly replied.

"I want to help you." Darien said forcing what he thought would be a comforting smile.

Lita didn't even notice. She continued to stare out the window.

"Why did we change course?"

Darien cleared his throat. "I told you. We have to meet up with L and A."

"LUNA AND ARTEMIS! SAY IT GODDAMN IT!" Lita turned and screamed at him, tears rolling down her eyes.

Darien shook his head and closed his eyes. "They care about you. They want to make sure that you are alright."

Lita turned back to the window. "Is that why they made me into a monster? Do you know what I almost did to your 'fiancée?'" Lita scoffs. "And what I DID do to your lover?"

Darien turned away from her.

"We weren't just lovers."

Lita gently began to rock in her window. "Yeah if you say so. Maybe if you'd been more interested in Serena than in Raye, like you were supposed to be, things would be different right now."

Darien sighed. "I wouldn't have worked."

Lita turned back to him. "IT'S FUCKING DESTINY! IT HAD ALREADY HAPPENED!" She put her anger back in check and turned back to the window.

"You're such an idiot, Darien."

Darien just stood and walked across the room. He sees the homemade distress sign in the window.

"What's this?" He asked her.

Lita shifted a little to make sure Darien only saw her back. "Just the result of boredom."

Darien removed the note from the window. Lita had changed it. It read 'HELP ME – AIM HERE'.

"It's not funny. We – I don't want you to die." Darien noted as he crumpled up the paper and threw it into a trash disposal.

"She was over here, wasn't she?" Lita said, changing the subject.

"Yeah."

"Did you watch her? Did you remember the good times?"

Darien moved over to Lita's desk and looked some of her things over.

"No. I was busy."

Lita whimpered out a laugh. "Sounds about right."

Darien turned to her. "I wasn't cheating on her."

"I suppose you just tripped and fell into Raye."

Darien picked up a PADD that was on the desk and hurled it at Lita, missing her by only inches. The pad nails the window and shatters into a dozen pieces. Lita doesn't even move.

"You don't understand anything, do you Lita?"

Lita continued her rocking. "No. I suppose I don't."

"I love Raye, not Serena. I married Raye, not Serena."

Lita just smiled to herself. "And you ditched them both."

Darien, in obvious frustration, storms out of Lita's quarters.

Lita just continued to rock while watching the stars whisk by.


	4. Deceptions

**CHAPTER THREE: DECEPTIONS**

Ranma seemed to be fixated on the star field in front of him. They hardly seemed to be moving. Of course when you are at 1/2 impulse in relative terms, you hardly are moving. Especially when you are in open space and there was nothing else around you for light years.

Ranma leaned back and slid down in his chair a little bit more and sighed. The last 24 hours had been very uneventful. A plasma spike in impulse vent numbers seven and eight. A .009 percent deviation from norms in the artificial gravity field on deck eleven. A couple of light bulbs burned out in various different places.

The usual crap. No mysterious ships decloaking in front of them. No supposedly dead people walking around on the bridges of said ships. No one telling him 'that's classified.'

Nope. Nothing interesting. Pretty damned boring you'd think.

Ranma's mind had been working, however. Working overtime. There were just too damned many questions that didn't have answers. Ranma couldn't stand that. He had to know what was going on all the time. If he had a question he wanted an answer regardless of whose toes he would have to step on.

They'd have to find their answers elsewhere though. The only lead they had was hundreds of light-years away by now.

Ranma was snapped out of his trance by an abnormal chirping from Mousses console.

"Mousse?" Ranma asks, turning towards his weapons officer.

Mousse scratched his head. "That's weird." He hit a few more buttons.

"Any way you can be more specific than that?" Ranma asked.

"Not really, no." Mousse replied, very matter of factly.

Shampoo got up and walked over to his station. Mousse started to twitch around, but managed to hold his cool. Ever since Shampoo's experience on the pirate ship she'd actually started to be nice to him. Not as nice as Mousse would have liked, but nice.

"Proximity alert." Shampoo stated. She hit the same buttons Mousse did. "Nothing on sensor though. Shampoo not understand."

Ranma turned to the ops station. "Mina?"

Mina was one step ahead of the order. She was checking out the logs. "Something defiantly tripped the alert, but the sensor log shows nothing out there."

"Meteor?" Ranma asked.

Mina shook her head. "No, any debris large enough to set off the proximity alert would show up on sensors. I mean we are hit be hundreds of pieces of flotsam of what ever sort every hour. But none of them are big enough to even penetrate the deflection grid, much less set off a proximity alert."

"So what was it?" Shampoo queried.

"Mousse -" Ranma ordered. "Send out a tachyon burst."

Mousse nodded and complied. A tachyon burst would detect any cloaked ships that weren't too far away.

Mousse' panel chirped and he shook his head. "Nothing."

Ranma sighed. Another mystery. He turned to his left. "Raye do you sense-"

Ranma felt kind of stupid. No one was sitting there. He looked at the clock on the wall. 1120. He hit his comm badge.

"Saotome to Commander Hino."

Nothing.

"Computer, where is Commander Hino?"

The computer chirped. "Commander Raye Hino is in her quarters, deck four section 11, quarters 411-023."

The computer was nothing if it wasn't specific. Ranma stood up and turned towards the lift.

"Captain?" Mina asked. Ranma turned to her.

"If you wouldn't mind, sir - let me go get her - after what she saw yesterday."

Ranma nodded and sat back down. Mina hopped up from her station and headed towards the aft turbolift.

"Commander -" Ranma called, continuing to look straight ahead. Mina turned to him. "I'll let my desire to be nice and understanding make this decision once. However twice I will have to revert back to captain jerk mode." Ranma turned to Mina and gave her his best 'I'm serious' face.

Mina nodded in understanding, walked into the lift. "Deck four." She ordered. The doors closed.

"Ranma?" Ryouga asked.

Ranma cleared his throat. "ENSIGN Hibiki. On this ship you are to address me as CAPTAIN or SIR. Understand?"

Ryouga simply rolled his eyes. "Captain?" He said, not even trying to be subtle with the sarcastic tone.

"Yeah?"

"I think I may have made a wrong turn."

Ranma eyed Ryouga. "How do you figure?"

Ryouga pointed to the view screen. A Cardassian scout ship was sitting in front of them.

"Shit." Ranma screeched. "All stop! Yellow alert!" Ranma paused and realized that the ship wasn't there 10 seconds ago. "Mousse? Where the hell did that thing come from?"

"Beats me!" Mousse whimpered, placing the ship under yellow alert.

The lights on the bridge of the Sisko didn't dim, but alert lights came on in the background. The humming of the Level 1 defensive shields came online. The sounds of the hull plating being polarized could be heard. Panels chirped to acknowledge that the photon torpedoes and phasers were coming online.

Shampoo checked out the display on her panel. "We not in Cardassian space."

Ryouga grinned. Shampoo gave him her evil eye.

"We still 8 billion kilometers off course -" Ryouga lost his smile. "- but we still in Federation space, by a good trillion kilometers."

"Tactical analysis." Ranma ordered.

Shampoo checked out her panel while Mousse checked his. Shampoo was the first to answer. "Phasers only, standard defensive shields. No threat."

Mousse nodded. "I concur. One quantum torpedo will nix the shields, and then a solid phaser blast will destroy it."

Ranma nodded. "Hail them."

Mousse complied and a Cardassian popped on the screen.

"Greetings! I am Gul Alek!" The Cardassian stated.

Ranma almost started to laugh. He'd never seen a Cardassian who was that friendly.

"I'm Captain Ranma Saotome of the Federation Starship, The U.S.S. Sisko."

"Nice to meet you, Captain." The Gul grinned. "Not that I am complaining, but why are you in Cardassian space?"

Ranma cocked his head. "I was about to ask you the same thing. Except that you are in Federation space."

The Gul looked to another Cardie and shouted at him. He checked his computer and talked back to the Gul. This went on for a few seconds then the Gul turned back to Ranma.

"I'm so sorry!" He beamed. "After doing a check it would seem our navigational computer is off by almost 20 light-years! We will get back to where we are supposed to be! Take care, Captain. Oh, and sorry if we startled you. We passed underneath you to get in front of you."

"No problem." Ranma grinned at the Gul. He returned the grin.

The screen went blank and the ship pulled a u-ie and warped off towards Cardassian space.

"Mousse?" Ranma asked.

"It was the ventral proximity alarm that got tripped." Mousse replied with some uncertainty in his voice.

Ranma looked at Shampoo. "What do you think?"

"Stink like wet cat."

Ranma shuddered. Wet he didn't like. Cats he really didn't like. This he hated.

Nifty Star Trek Doorbell Sound Here 

Raye rolled over in her bed. She looked at the door. Who the hell was bothering her? Her head was still pounding from the multiple vodkas she drank to help her get to sleep. It seemed to be the only way to get the picture of Darien walking across that ships bridge out of her mind.

She didn't understand. He put her through hell faking his death. She was unable to do anything for months afterward.

She wanted to kill him for putting her through that.

She knew she couldn't though. Her urge to grab and hold him out weighed the resentment for the pain he caused with his deception.

She wanted to hold him.

Smell him.

Kiss him.

She wanted it back the way they were before.

Part of her knew the relationship wasn't right though. Who was she to mess with destiny? Then again, if it wasn't supposed to happen, how did it?

She could remember the fun times they had. After he had broken up with Serena they had to keep it quiet. The other girls thought it was a horrible idea. She didn't like sneaking around, but she did what she had to do to be with the man she loved. The man who loved her, and always had.

Eventually Mina and Ami came around to understand that maybe Serena and Darien weren't meant to be. They also looked at the logic that if it was destiny then they would still be together. Serena and Darien.

However now it was Raye and Darien. That's what was happening and there was no point in fighting it.

Lita didn't agree. Lita hated Raye for what she was doing to Serena. Because they were keeping it quiet, Serena thought that she was the reason that Darien dumped her. She thought it had to have been something that she did. She tried so hard to be the perfect girlfriend and get Darien back, but he just ignored her. This had damned near killed Serena. Damn near but it wasn't until Lita told Serena what really happened that she completely broke down.

All Serena knew in her life was flipped with those four words from Darien.

_I love Raye, sorry._

Raye wasn't sorry though. She knew that it hurt Serena, but she was tired of hurting herself. Loving someone who couldn't love her back.

Everyone knew what was going on except Serena. All she knew was that Darien dumped her. Lita brought the relationship to light.

The group was on a picnic together when Darien showed up. He said hello to Serena and started to chat with Raye. Lita watched Serena go through her own personal hell in her heart, trying to figure out why she dumped her.

Lita couldn't hold it in anymore.

_I love Raye, sorry._

Serena asked Darien how he could do it. How he could just toss aside the woman who loved him more than anything. The woman he was meant to be with!

_I love Raye, sorry._

Raye loved to hear that. She loved to know that he loved her. She loved the feeling at knowing that she would be with him forever. She never concerned herself with the thoughts that maybe she would be on the receiving end of that sorry. No, she knew that Darien would never leave her. After all he alienated his friends to be with her. He snubbed so called destiny in the face for her. He'd never leave.

But he did.

Not for another woman though.

It was 2148 when she got the call. She was at home, the home she shared with Darien, reading the Tokyo Times. She had some John Cougar Melloncamp playing in the background. That song Jack and Diane was her favorite.

He was at a London McDonald's eating some dinner. He was in London on business, but he would be home the next morning.

When she answered the transmission she saw a man in a London Police uniform. _I'm sorry._ The police officer said.

Those words echoed in Raye's head. All she could hear was 'I'm sorry.'

The officer explained to her what had happened. He was eating a Big Mac when he just dropped over dead. The Big Mac was infected with the only case of Mad Cow disease in the past 300 years. He explained that Darien felt no pain and died instantly. He explained that after the autopsy that his body would be transported back to Tokyo for a funeral.

She didn't really hear that though. All she could hear was 'I'm sorry.'

The doorbell rang again.

"Go the hell away!" Raye called out, rolling over.

"Raye?" Mina's voice carried through her door.

"Ugh - Mina, come in." Raye mumbled, putting her pillow over her head, hiding the tears that her memories had caused.

The doors slid open and Mina walked in. She looked at Raye's quarters. A mess. Not like Raye at all. Raye was more or less, a neat freak. It drove Mina crazy. Now, Raye's quarters looked a lot like Mina's quarters.

Mina noticed several glasses all over the floor. She began to pick them up and put them into the replicator. She sighed when she saw the empty bottles next to the replicator. It's pretty bad when you go from glasses to the whole bottle.

"I wanted to check on you." Mina said. "It's 1130."

Raye sat right up. "You're shitting me?!"

Mina shook her head while continuing to pick up the glasses. "No ma'am. I talked the captain out of writing you up for it though."

Raye scrambled from her bed and into the shower. She was supposed to be on the bridge at 1100. She was lucky that she didn't have any counseling appointments. Not many people dared to ask Raye for advice. The ones who did were detained to make sure they didn't do anything to themselves. Raye had a way of making people feel worse, than better.

"I've been thinking -" Raye called from the shower. "That ship was obviously a SI ship. You think that they made him fake his death in order to put him undercover somewhere?"

Mina nodded to the logic in that. "I've heard that SI's undercover operatives do things like that. But I have never heard of them being on a marked vessel with Starfleet Officers on it. They don't want anyone to know who they are. In case of capture and stuff."

Raye walks out into the room in her underwear. "Do you see a uniform in that anywhere?" She points to a pile of clothes in the corner.

Mina sighs and begins to dig through the pile of garments. She pulls a uniform out of the pile and sniffs it. "Yeah - but I'd replicate a new one."

Raye rolls her eyes and walks over to the replicator. She orders a uniform and it appears. She puts it on, places her pips on her collar, and puts on her communicator. She does one final check in the mirror and smiles. She nods to Mina and the two walk out the door.

The pair walks down the corridor towards a turbolift. Raye turns to Mina as they walk. "Did you come up with a plan yet?"

"Plan to do what?" Mina dryly responded, knowing exactly what Raye was talking about.

"Get Darien."

Mina stops, shakes her head and grabs Raye's arm. "Let's say we get him. What are we going to do with him? Do you REALLY think that he is being held against his will? Do you think that he WANTS to be gotten? Do you think that he went through all this trouble just so that we could find him six years later?"

Raye shrugs. "I need to see him. We need to get Darien. We have –" Raye cleared her throat. "I need to look him in the eye and say 'Darien – Why?'"

Raye and Mina continue and walk around the corner they were just a couple of feet from. They both screech to a halt when they see who was standing just around the corner.

"Darien?" Serena whimpers, not looking at the two. She leans back against the wall. "Get Darien?"

Mina sighed. "Serena - Darien might not be dead."

Serena looked right at Mina and let out a gasp. She then hit the deck.

"Serena?" The two girls called. Serena didn't respond. Mina hit her communicator. "Sickbay - Medical emergency deck 4 section 16."

An anonymous voice acknowledged the call and advised that he was dispatching EMTs.

A minute or so later Akane and two techs came running around the corner.

"What happened?" Akane asked.

"She fainted." Mina replied.

The techs injected Serena with a hypospray. She let out a moan and opened her eyes. She looked up and saw a very handsome EMT kneeling above her.

"I should pass out more often!" She giggled weakly. The tech grinned and helped her to her feet. She turned to Akane. "Thank you, Commander."

Akane nodded, and her and the EMTs left. Serena looked at Mina, and then to Raye who was slinking towards the turbolift. Mina noticed this.

"Serena, lets go up to the conference room and chat about this, okay?" Mina asked. Serena nodded and the group went into the lift.

The lift ride was one of the most silent and awkward ones Mina had ever been on. Even the one with the captain after she stabbed him in an attempt to out him as a founder wasn't this awkward. At least then she knew what to say to break the silence.

Serena could really do nothing but stare in front of her. Darien. That was a name she hadn't heard in a while. Not one she was really too interested in hearing ever again. It had taken her a long, long time to get over Darien. It was eventually his death that got her to forgive him for what he did to her. It took her even longer to forgive Raye. She did though. They weren't friends like they were when they were all sailor scouts, but they were friends.

Raye simply watched her shoes. Even though she knew that it was better for Darien to be with her, she did feel guilty for hurting her friend. Raye did her best to hide it behind the emotional wall she built up after his so called death, but she did have a conscious.

Eventually the door opened and the three stepped onto the bridge. Ranma turned and smiled at the group.

"Commander Hino. Nice to see you." Ranma snickered.

Raye kept her head pointed to the floor. "I'm so sorry, Captain."

Ranma nodded. "It's okay, this time."

Raye nodded and shuffled off into the conference room. Serena followed her. Mina stayed behind to talk to the captain. She walked down the bridge and sat in Raye's seat, next to Ranma.

Mina leaned close to Ranma so that no one else on the bridge would be able to hear her. Shampoo adjusted herself slightly so that she would be closer to the pair, but she couldn't hear very well.

"Captain." Mina whispered. "Serena knows who was on that ship now. I need to show her the video and explain what's going on." Mina half laughed at her own statement. "Well, at least what we know about what's going on."

Ranma nodded, but grabbed Mina's arm before she could get up. Shampoo watched the exchange with concern.

"Commander -" Ranma paused and let in a deep breath. He let out an even deeper exhale and continued. "- Mina. I know that they are your friends but I need to make sure I know if they are going to compromise the security or safety of this ship-"

Mina cut him off. "They are my best friends. Have been for years." Mina sighed. "I did take an oath to Starfleet. I know exactly what my priorities are. My loyalty is to you and this ship, sir. I will tell you if I know they are planning something."

Ranma smiled and let go of Mina. She got up and walked into the conference room. Shampoo leaned in closer to Ranma.

"Ranma no trust blonde girl?"

Ranma sighed. "Yes, I trust her. Just had to make sure."

Shampoo leaned back. "If Ranma say so."

"We're out of their long range sensor range, Captain." The helmsman told Captain Giles.

"Solid, cloak the ship and disable the sensor emitters." The Captain responded.

The helmsman did as he was told. He nodded when it was complete.

"Blimey then! Come about and intercept the Sisko."

Chronister looked at the captain from his seat in the first officer's chair. "Be careful not to get within 5000 meters again." Chronister ordered dryly.

The captain nodded. "Hear that Daniels?" He barked at the helmsman.

Daniels nodded. "I'm sorry. There is very little room outside of 5000 meters where I will still be in their plasma exhaust. It's only solid for 5500 meters and this ship is already 350 meters long!"

The captain nodded. "No need to quote me schematics. I know how long the ship is. But it's imperative that we don't get detected again."

"Aye sir." Daniels replied, entering in the proper commands and swinging the Minneapolis around. "Why exactly do I have to stay in their plasma trail? Isn't that a little bit dangerous anyway? One major static discharge and-"

"Yeah." Chronister interrupted. "But the plasma disrupts tachyon bursts. You'll be begging for a major static discharge if Chicago finds out that we were made."

"Good reason to be in it then." Daniels replied returning his focus on his station, realizing that it would be better if he didn't do any more talking.

"Did it work?" Darien called from the back on the bridge as he came walking out of the turbolift.

Chronister stood and turned to him. "More or less. We gave them a missing Cardassian scout ship, and an explanation for the proximity alarm. We're cloaked and on the way back."

Darien grunted. "Let's see if this moron crew can do it right this time."

"Just a god damned minute." Giles said, standing and turning to Darien.

Chronister grabbed Giles' sleeve and pulled him back into his seat. He then turned to Darien. "ETA on L and A?"

Darien looked at his watch. "Fifteen hours, give or take. They said 22 hours, which meant they were probably about six hours away. A's got a thing about surprising people. They said they were in Chicago, but I doubt it."

"What do they plan on doing?" Chronister asked.

Darien shrugged as he walked into the conference room. "Shit I don't know. Probably blow the Sisko to bits."

Captain Giles watched Darien walk into the room and the door slide shut. He turned back to Chronister.

"They wouldn't really kill those people would they?" He asked.

Chronister sat back down and turned his head slightly. "They've destroyed entire planets over stolen documents before. I don't even think they would blink considering that an operative is involved."

The captain turned back to the screen. He knew that as a Starfleet Intelligence Officer that sometimes he was required to kill people. That really didn't bother him. They all got killed for a good reason. He, however, couldn't allow for the Sisko to be destroyed. They had done nothing wrong. As a matter of fact, if it hadn't been for him allowing them to come aboard they wouldn't even have known the Minneapolis existed.

He came to a decision. If it came to it, he would defend the Sisko. The crew of the Minneapolis was loyal to him, not Section 31. The killing of 564 innocent Starfleet Officers was not going to happen as long as he had anything to do with it.

Chronister sensed something was on the captain's mind. He knew that by the way Giles and Darien were arguing that there was bound to be an explosion eventually. Three weeks battling over who was in control can cause some major tension.

Giles stood and began to walk off. He turned to Chronister. "I'll be in my ready room. Lt. Eckland, you have the bridge."

The female officer sitting at the OPS station nodded and had a seat in the captain's chair. She looked to Chronister. "How ya doin'?"

Chronister laughed. "Fine. How's the ferret?"

Eckland laughed back. "She misses you. You need to visit more often." Eckland leaned over and gave Chronister a peck on the cheek.

"I'll have to do that." Chronister grinned.

Once Giles was in his ready room and the door had closed he hit his comm badge. "Secure." The comm badge chirped twice. "Giles to Commander Staff, can you please report to my ready room. Transport in please."

"Aye sir." Staff responded.

Moments later Staff materialized in front of Giles. "Sir?" Staff asked.

Giles stood and looked Staff right in the eye.

"You and I have been friends for a very long time, right?"

Staff didn't quite understand what his captain meant with the question. "Sir? Of course we have. We still are." Staff paused for a moment. "Aren't we?"

Giles nodded. "James - Something is going to happen. I believe that Section 31 is going to destroy the Sisko."

Staff's jaw dropped. "Why?"

"You know how those damned cats are. The Sisko's crew knows something so they must be murdered."

Staff raised an eyebrow. "You aren't going to let that happen, are you Steve?" Staff stated more than asked.

Giles shook his head. "No, I'm not." Giles cracked his knuckles and looked his friend right in the eyes, even more intently this time. "I need to know that you are behind any decision I make."

Staff straightens his stance a little bit. "As your friend I am behind you on any decision you make, whether it be wrong or right. As your Chief of Security, I will follow you into the gates of hell if you ordered it."

Giles cocked his head slightly and blankly looked at his friend. "Do you think I am making the right decision?"

Staff nodded. "Morally, yes I do. As for fundamentally, well that will all depend on if we are alive in 24 hours." Staff let out a chuckle.

"What about your staff?" Giles queried.

"Hand picked by me. They are loyal to me, and therefore to you."

Giles grabbed his friend's hand and shook it. "Thanks, James. And lets not mention this to anyone until we need to, okay?"

Staff smiled and nodded. "I'd be careful of the other officers though. Your operations people weren't picked by either of us."

Giles nodded.

Staff hit his comm badge. "Transport Alpha 16."

Staff vanished in the usual pretty transporter effect. Giles sat back down in his chair, turned and just stared out the window.

"Remember that ship that you repaired yesterday?" Mina asked Serena after sitting her at the end of the conference table.

Serena nodded.

"This is the video of the conversation that the captain had with the captain of that ship, before they departed." Mina punched some buttons and the video played. "Computer, go to time index 1232.93" Mina ordered.

The computer complied and the video fast-forwarded. It stopped and began to play a few seconds before Darien walked into frame.

Serena stared intently at the video. Then she saw him. Darien. There was no doubt about it. She suddenly also came to the realization that the voice she heard on the comm. system, the one that sounded familiar was his. Commander Chronister was talking to Darien.

"What the hell?" Serena asked no one in particular. She looked to Raye who seemed to be on the verge of tears again.

Mina cleared her throat. "We've come to the conclusion that this ship works for Starfleet Intelligence. Or to be more precise, Section 31."

Raye looked at Mina. Mina nodded. "I did do some research last night, Raye. I talked to an old friend of mine who was an intern for the Federation Council. This is how Section 31 operates.

"To ensure that there is no 'wondering' about where someone who is an operative has gone; they 'kill' him or her." Mina had the computer punch up some other stuff. "This is some declassified information that I got from my friend. Look familiar?"

Serena nodded. "That's the messed up warp core that they made us work on."

Mina nodded. "This is just phase one of development from about three years ago. The other phases are still classified. Apparently they placed orders for three of these."

"So, there are three of those ships flying around here somewhere?" Raye asked.

Mina again nodded. "The same person who placed the order also asked for the retirement of three names from Starfleet Ship Services."

"The Minneapolis." Serena noted.

"Yes." Mina agreed. "Also the USS Roseville and the USS Ventura."

"ROSEVILLE?" Raye exclaimed. "That's the ship-"Raye cut herself off.

"The ship that took Lita's body." Mina concluded.

Serena could only shake her head in disbelief. "Are –"Her voice started to break but she really didn't want to start crying in front of Raye. "Are you implying that Darien and Lita are Section 31 operatives?"

Mina couldn't respond. She could only look at her friends.

"What the fuck was she doing on that pirate's ship?" Raye finally asked after a few moments of silence.

Mina shrugged. "There are really only two people who would know that and one of them is dead." She sighed. "The other is on that ship, alive as you or I."

Serena stood up. "Why didn't we go over there and talk to him when they came back?"

Mina and Raye both looked at Serena like her head was screwed on backwards.

"What do you mean when they came back?" Mina asked.

"I was eating some cereal in 10-Forward before my shift. As I was getting ready to leave I looked out the window and saw that funky Defiant looking thing sitting in front of us." Serena explains. "I assumed that they were back for more help or something and I didn't wanna go back so I was on my way back to my quarters to hide when I ran into you guys."

Mina's brain kicked into overdrive. "The Cardassian – Excuse me." Mina said as she tore off onto the bridge.

"Captain" Mina called as she ran around the bridge, shoved the replacement Ops officer out of the chair, slid into her seat and began to run scans. "That wasn't a Cardassian ship."

"What?" Shampoo exclaimed. "Look like one to Shampoo!"

"I have to agree, Commander. The guy I was talking to looked like a Cardassian to me." Ranma stated

"False sensor readings." Mina grunted as she continued to hit buttons. "The view screen isn't a true view of what is outside. It's simply the sensors creating an image based upon what they are seeing."

Ranma started to get a headache. He didn't really know much about how things worked. As long as they did. "So, how then do you know it wasn't a Cardassian ship?"

"I saw the real ship." Serena said from the back of the bridge. "Out the window."

"The ship can't actually become a Cardassian ship, so when you actually see it, it's a Starfleet vessel. That's what that proximity alarm was. When they went past us, they set off a proximity alarm because they got within five kilometers. Cloaked or not they take up space and they have mass.

"The proximity sensors act more or less the same as old school radar. They send an energy pulse in every direction. If it gets returned to the ship, then it sets off the alarm." Mina finished with her button pushing. "We need actual cameras installed out the windows in different parts of the ship so that we can get a complete 360 X Y and Z axis view. I bet they are still out here somewhere."

Ranma turned to Mousse. "Do it."

Mousse acknowledged the order and took off. Ryouga turned to Mina. "What good will the cameras do? So they had to uncloak to do their little Cardassian imitation. How do we see them if they are cloaked? I don't know much about cloaking technology but I know that when they are cloaked you cannot physically see them. They really are invisible."

Mina shook her head. "Right and wrong, Ensign. They aren't invisible. Light is reflected off the cloaking shields to give the physical illusion of being invisible. If you know what you are looking for, you can see them."

"You know what you look for?" Shampoo asked Mina.

"No ma'am." Mina replied solemnly.

Ranma thought for a second. "I know who would."


	5. Decisions

CHAPTER FOUR: DECISIONS 

Artemis let out a light snort. It startled the helmsman of the USS Roseville. The bridge had been so quiet for the past two hours. A few of the standard Starfleet chirps here and there, but no real noise.

He turned to see Artemis sound asleep in the Captain's chair. He was curled up in one of those cute kitty-cat sleeping positions.

The helmsman raised an eyebrow. He and a few of the other crew people had been wondering what would happen if they tried something.

That something is scratching the boss cats behind the ears. Most cats loved that, but would these cats?

The helmsman brought up his instant messenger console on his terminal and sent a message over to the ops station.

_'Watch my terminal for a second. I'm going to do it.' _The message read.

The Ops officer looked at the helm station with his mouth gaped wide open. He began to type a reply.

_'Are you sure?'_

The helmsman nodded and began to type.

_'My cat at home loves it. Why won't he?'_

The ops officer almost started to laugh.

_'These aren't your normal cats. Good luck, see you at your execution.'_

The helmsman just scowled at his shipmate.

He slid out of his seat and slinked to the command console. He sat down in the first officer's chair.

He began to scratch.

Artemis' ears twitched a little bit. The helmsman smiled.

"Ensign." Artemis grumbled.

The helmsman lost his smile and stopped scratching. "Yes sir?"

"I like that." The white cat replied. "This is now your new job. Scratch behind my ears. Ops, get a new helmsman up here."

"Aye." The ops officer chuckled. The helmsman just sighed.

"Well hop to it, boy." Artemis ordered. "Chop, chop."

The helmsman closed his eyes and began to scratch.

Moments later the turbo lift door opened and Luna walked out. She walked down the ramp and stood looking at Artemis and his ear scratcher.

"What are you doing Ensign?" Luna asked.

"Um – Scratching him behind the ears."

Luna just shook her head. "Take your post." She commanded. The ensign gladly obliged. Luna then hopped up into the XO's seat. She took a paw and started to poke her furry comrade.

"Wake up."

Artemis grumbled and turned to face Luna. "What?"

"They were almost discovered. Again."

Artemis sat right up. "WHAT?"

Luna shook her head. "They are riding in their plasma exhaust to evade tachyon bursts. They got too close and set of a prox alarm.

"They managed to convince the Sisko that they were just a wayward Cardassian scout ship though."

Artemis was the one to shake his head this time. "I'm going to send that ship and her entire crew to do recon in the Gamma quadrant. Keep them out of my fur for a good fifty years."

Luna chuckled. "So what's the plan?"

"Simple." Artemis replied. "Get Lita, blow up the Sisko and go get sir fry. Shouldn't take more than twenty minutes tops."

Luna sighed. "You really think we need to blow them up?"

Artemis rolls his eyes. "What else are we going to do? They know of our classified technology. They know of our cloaking devices. They know that someone who is supposed to be dead is working for us. How else do you suppose we make them not know these things?"

Luna frowned. She knew that there wasn't any other option. She was worried for Lita though. It had become obvious that Lita didn't want anything to do with Section 31 anymore.

Yes, Luna was worried. You can't just walk away from Section 31. Especially not on bad terms.

JC had just gotten comfortable. He was in his underwear stretched out on his sofa with some soda and a pizza. He had 9 hours of Love Hina cued up on his computer. He was going to enjoy his day off.

Nifty Star Trek doorbell sound 

"Mother fuck." JC grumbled. "Who is it?" He called out.

"Captain Saotome." Ranma called back from the other side of the door.

JC scurried up off the couch and to his closet to grab some clothes. "One second, Captain!" He called.

After managing to put on some pants and a t-shirt he went to the door and opened it.

"Captain, good to see you." JC nodded.

Ranma smiled. "May I?" He said, motioning into JC's quarters.

JC nodded. "Of course sir. It's a bit of a mess, though."

Ranma walked into the room and had a seat at JC's dining table. He motioned for JC to sit and join him. Ranma took notice of the pizza box and six-pack of Mt. Dew on the floor next to the couch.

"I apologize for disturbing you." Ranma said, while looking at the Mt. Dew. "Do you mind if I steal on of those? I haven't had a Mt. Dew in months!"

JC started to stand. "Sure! – Let me-"

Ranma waved his hand at JC. "I'll get it."

JC sat back down as his captain grabbed two of the drinks and rejoined him at the table. He handed one to JC.

"I need your help, Lieutenant." Ranma stated very matter-of-factly. "We have a cloaked Section 31 ship following us. I need to find that ship."

JC raised an eyebrow. "Section 31? Well, a tachyon burst will let you know if there is a cloaked ship out there."

Ranma shook his head. "We've tried that. Nothing comes up on the sensors."

JC slid down in his seat slightly. "Well, there is no cloaking technology that isn't susceptible to a tachyon burst."

"Not even that experimental cloak that the ship you guys repaired had?"

JC shook his head. "Tachyon energy cannot be absorbed. That would be the only way to-"JC cut himself off, got up and ran to his dresser.

He pulled out a PADD and started to read it.

"Plasma exhaust disrupts tachyons."

"Plasma exhaust?" Ranma pondered. "You mean they could be right up our ass?"

"Well – in a manner of speaking, yes. The plasma exhaust goes down from the impulse and warp manifolds at a 45 degree angle." JC flailed his arms in a feeble attempt to visually explain what he was talking about.

"Of course." Ranma said, finally realizing what that meant. "The ventral prox alarm."

"Captain?" JC asked.

"This cloaked ship set off our ventral proximity alarm earlier."

JC nodded. "They would have to be close. Plasma starts to dissipate at about 5500 meters. So they would have to be really close. I bet if we came to an emergency stop they would ram right into us. Granted that would more than likely destroy us, but you'd know they were there!"

Ranma laughed. He liked this kid.

"Do you know how to visually detect a cloaked ship?"

"You mean like out the window?"

Ranma nodded.

"Yeah, more or less. You have to pay real close attention though." JC stated.

Ranma stood. "Sorry to do this too you, but I need you on the bridge." He looked at JC's couch. "You can have tomorrow off, I promise. Report to Commander Aino in 20 minutes."

JC acknowledged the order as the captain left the room, slurping down his Mountain Dew, mumbling something along the lines of 'damn that's good.

JC had heard about Section 31. He really wasn't expecting there to be a tomorrow to have off.

Twenty minutes later.

JC walked onto the bridge. He looked around. For the most part it looked like business as usual. That was until he looked to the tactical station. There was Mousse, Mina, Ranma, Shampoo, and a couple of no name tactical officers. There must be big doings a foot to have this many people pining over one station.

Mina looked up and over to the turbolift.

"Ah! Lt. Devall! Glad you could make it!" Mina smiled at him. JC walked over to where Mina was. She promptly lead him away from the tactical station and over to her ops station.

"Do you think a plasma explosion would be enough to destabilize a cloak?" Mina asked him.

JC thought about that for a minute. "Depends on how big."

"Big. Our plasma exhaust big." Shampoo called over to the pair.

"Maybe if you vented an extra 10 kilotons. That would do it. Just what's out there would make a pretty light show, and maybe scorch the paint on the bottom of the ship, but other than that, pointless." JC stated. "But, unless you close our exhaust valves prior to igniting it, well, we will also become quite destabilized."

Ranma nodded.

Mina pointed up to the view screen. "This is a real visual out of the aft ventral observation room. The camera is pointed in about a 40-degree angle to our ventral - between the nacelles and down. I've been watching it, but I'm not really sure what I am looking for."

JC stared at the screen for a moment. "Stars."

Mina raised an eyebrow.

"When the ship passes in front of our view of a star it will reappear in a different position. It's part of the reflecting of the light."

JC stared intently at the viewer for a good two minutes.

"There." He called out. "That star shifted downward about a degree or two."

"Are you positive?" Ranma asked, moving back into his chair.

"Yes sir." JC called back. He stood up and allowed Mina to take her seat back.

"Good. Shampoo begin."

Shampoo hit her communicator. "Shampoo to Engineering. Serena vent 10 kiloton plasma now."

"VENTED!" Serena's voice called out over the communicator.

"Close ducts!" Shampoo ordered.

"CLOSED!" Serena hollered.

"Mousse! Fire torpedo!" Shampoo ordered.

Ranma spoke up. "RED ALRET! ALL DECKS BRACE FOR IMPACT!"

Mousse hit some buttons. "Torpedo away!"

The torpedo streaked from the aft launcher, but only went about 500 meters then detonated.

The explosion from the plasma was amazing. The Sisko was knocked for a loop. The shields glowed a fierce blue, as they absorbed a good deal of energy from the blast. The shock caused both nacelles to go from their healthy glowing blue to an offline black. The ship began to cartwheel away. Ryouga struggled to regain control of the ship while Mina worked on getting warp online, incase they had to make a break for it.

JC came crashing to the floor. Shampoo managed to hold her position standing next to Mousse. Ranma almost fell out of his seat.

Ryouga regained yaw control of the ship. They were pointed away from the Minneapolis. Mousse punched up a different camera.

Outside the image of a ship could be seen phasing in and out.

"TARGETED!" Mousse screamed.

"FIRE!" Ranma ordered.

A brilliant red stream of lights flowed from the Sisko's phaser banks, striking the Minneapolis. Since her shields were down she took some pretty heavy damage to her forward dorsal torpedo launchers.

Once the Minneapolis' cloak was down completely, Ranma grinned.

"Ryouga, bring us about. Mousse target their shields and weapons. Fire when ready."

Both officers complied. Ryouga swung the ship around so that the two ships were facing each other. Mousse grinned as he entered in the commands.

Phaser blasts from the Sisko hit the Minneapolis' phaser banks, scorching them. Three torpedoes then streaked from the Sisko hitting each of the Minneapolis' primary shield generators.

"All targets hit. The blast caused minor damage to our shields."

Ranma nodded.

Mina spoke up. "The safety system kicked in and knocked warp offline, but it's coming back now."

Ranma acknowledged her as Mousse spoke up again.

"We're being hailed."

The bridge crew of the Minneapolis went flying in every which direction. Captain Giles included.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" Giles screamed.

The ops officer climbed back into her seat. "They discharged 10 kilotons of plasma then ignited it –"She cut herself off. "THEY'RE FIRING!"

The ship shook hard again. Crew people went flying once again. Panels exploded and steam ducts ruptured.

"SHIELDS!" Giles screamed.

The ops officer climbed back into her seat once again. "EPS RUPTURE! I HAVE TO BYPASS TO GET THE SHIELDS BACK ONLINE!"

The helmsman's eyes became all white. "They – they're coming about."

"Ballocks." Giles said as he realized he was face to face with the most heavily armed ship in the Federation.

The turbolift opened and Darien and Chronister came onto the bridge. Darien was the first to speak.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?"

Chronister, mouth wide open, just pointed to the viewer as the phaser blasts from the Sisko approached the Minneapolis.

Once again people and machinery were thrown askew. Darien was slammed against a wall, smacking his head. He hits the deck and doesn't move. Chronister slaps his communicator and calls for medical assistance.

The torpedoes looked to be the last thing that the Minneapolis captain would ever see. They slammed into the ship with a tremendous explosion.

Giles was somewhat relieved when he realized that he wasn't dead yet. He looked to his ops officer. "Shields?"

She simply shook her head. "They took out the primary shield generators. The secondary won't be working till we get the EPS grid repaired. The cloak overloaded them with the first shot."

"Can we cloak?" Chronister yelled. Darien was beginning to come to.

"No." She called back. "The cloak is fried."

"To hell with the cloak, return fire!" Darien called, stumbling to his feet.

"NO!" Giles yelled. "DO NOT FIRE ON THAT SHIP."

The ops officer looked at her captain, then back to Darien. "Sir – they did fire on us first."

Giles glared at his Ops officer. It was at this time that two security officers entered the bridge from the forward turbolift.

"I am your captain, not him. You bloody fire on that ship and you will be spending what remaining time we have left in the brig."

Darien stood and starts to walk, but stumbles slightly. "RETURN FIRE!"

The ops officer sighs and starts to hit some buttons. She almost looks disappointed when nothing happens.

"I locked out her station." The helmsman states.

Giles pats him on the shoulder. "Crewman, take her to the brig."

Darien now begins to run down the bridge. "FIRE ON THAT SHIP!"

Darien charges right for the captain. He's stopped by a phaser blast to the back. Giles looks to the back of the bridge where he sees Staff.

"Take him to his quarters and lock him in." Staff tells one of the security officers. He complies while the other takes the ops officer off.

Staff now has his weapon pointed at Chronister. "So. What's it to be?"

Chronister motions for him to put his weapon down. "I have no interest in seeing the Sisko destroyed."

Staff lowers his weapon as four more security officers arrive on the bridge. "Keep an eye on him. Let him move around, just watch him." Staff orders. The security officers acknowledge the order.

Staff walks down and takes a seat at the ops station. "Order?"

Giles sits back down in his chair. "Hail them."

"On screen." Ranma orders.

Captain Giles appears on the screen. Behind him he can see that the bridge is a mess of parts of the wall and other miscellaneous parts the fall off during an attack.

"Nice to see you, Captain Saotome." Giles smiled.

Ranma turned to Raye who turned to Mina who turned to Ryouga who turned to Shampoo who turned to Mousse.

Mousse simply shrugged.

"Yeah, likewise." Ranma grumbled. "What's the deal?"

"I'm going to be blunt with you." Giles stated. "We're a Starfleet Intelligence ship employed by Section 31. We're on a mission, which you actually didn't have any part in. Until the mishap in engineering that is."

"Right, right." Ranma noted. "Your so called overload from the so called nebula because of the non existent scout ship?"

Giles laughed. "I am not usually the liar. I just fly people around. I'm not very good at it, am I?"

Ranma shook his head. "No sir."

Raye stood up and walked toward the view screen. "May I?" She asked.

Ranma nodded.

"Where's Darien?" Raye asked.

Giles raised an eyebrow. "And who might you be, young lady?"

"Raye. Lt. Commander Raye Hino." She meekly replied.

"Ace! I've heard of you. CB had quite the thing for you. I can see why, too. You are very pretty. I certainly wouldn't have picked career over a bird like you."

A tear came to Raye's eye. "Where is he?"

"He's currently being held in his quarters. He attempted a cute little mutiny just a moment ago. As a matter of fact if it hadn't been for my security team you folks wouldn't even exist anymore."

"We targeted and destroyed your weapons!" Mousse cried out.

Giles shook his head. "Our conventional weapons that is. We have more. You did though do a good job of taking out our shields. Bravo! Once your tour of duty is up on the Sisko, Lieutenant, I may have to recruit you for myself!"

Mousse grinned.

"So why are we still here?" Ranma asked, somewhat dryly and upset that all of this is being taken so lightly.

Giles pointed to his communicator. "You see this, Captain? You have one also. It states that we are Starfleet Officers. I'm not against you, Captain. You were justified in your attack. You didn't know that this was a Starfleet ship cloaked and sitting in your plasma exhaust.

"Unfortunately I am responsible for the situation you are in right now."

"Situation? You mean you and me?" Ranma asked.

"No, sir, I am afraid that the trouble you are in is much worse. Currently there is another Section 31 ship warping this way right now. On board are the head of Section 31. They plan on getting something off of this ship, destroying it and my crew, your ship, crew and probably anything else within 10 light-years.

"I am going to help defend you against this ship."

"We do good job against you!" Shampoo said. "Why think we need help?"

"You won't catch them by surprise. They won't make an attempt to hide themselves when they get here."

"So what can we do to defend ourselves?" Ranma asked.

"You need to use a rotating shield frequency. Their weapons are Borg in origin."

Ranma looks to JC who is standing off in the corner. "Go to engineering and let Serena know."

JC just nods as he runs off the bridge.

"When will they be here?" Ranma asked.

Giles just shrugs. "Beats me. I think they are coming from Earth. If that's the case we have just over three hours. But the cats never tell us where they are coming from nor when they will be here."

"Cats?" Both Mina and Raye asked.

"Yeah. Can you believe it. The head of the most terrifying force in the Federation are a couple of cats."

Raye and Mina could only stare at each other.

"We will hail you again once our shields are repaired, Captain Saotome." Giles noted.

Ranma nodded. "Sisko out."

Just prior to the transmission ended a person walked across the back of the bridge.

"THAT GIRL!" Shampoo screamed.


	6. Actions

**CHAPTER FIVE: ACTIONS**

"You guys realize that you're dead men walking if you lock me in here." Darien grumbled at the security officers poking him in the back with their phaser rifles.

The lead one just shrugged. "I've known that from the first day I worked for Section 31."

"I can protect you if you let me go!" Darien replied.

The second guard spoke up this time. "No you can't. You will be just as dead as us. We know what's going on. The cats are going to get the girl. Then they are going to destroy the Sisko and then destroy us. Done and done."

Darien just grumbled as he is shoved through his doorway and into his quarters.

The security guards close the door behind him and a chirp is heard to signify that it is locked and sealed.

Darien walks over to his desk. He opens up a drawer and pulls out a phaser. He places it in his belt line. He then walks over to his closet and grabs a phaser rifle. He straps that to his back. He starts to walk over to the bathroom, but pauses and looks back into his closet. He proceeds back to the closet and grabs a small box. He opens it and inside are six long stem roses.

"Might need to go old school on these assholes." Darien grins to himself. He puts on a leather coat and places the roses in his inside pocket.

Darien then walks over to his bed and pulls a backpack out of it. He puts the back pack on and walks to the bathroom.

In the bathroom he pulls a panel off the wall. Behind the panel is a crawlspace just barely big enough for him. He gets into it and crawls away.

"Idiots." He murmurs.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?" Ranma exclaimed.

"Shampoo see girl from pirate ship!" Shampoo blubbered.

Ranma looked to Mina who was bringing up the replay. Sure enough, walking across the bridge towards Chronister's position was Lita.

"She looks really good for a dead woman." Ranma mused.

"How?" Raye just grumbled. "Why is she everywhere there is trouble?"

"She must have been a Section 31 operative." Ryouga concluded.

"Yeah we knew that two chapters ago." Mina mumbled.

"Hail them!" Ranma ordered.

Mousse complied but cocked his head when he got the response. "Uh – Ranma – I – I think I got an answering machine."

"WHAT?" Was the response from the entire bridge crew.

Mousse punched it up on the viewer. A picture of a very pretty female officer appeared.

"I'm sorry! We are unable to answer your hail right now, but if you would leave your name, number, and a message after the tone we will be sure to get back to you as soon as possible!" The female smiled and a tone is heard.

"Uh –"Ranma started. "This is Ranma Saotome, USS Benjamin Sisko, NCC 255108, just calling because we saw someone that we thought was dead on your bridge. The girl –"Ranma looked to Mina.

"Lita." Mina replied.

"Lita." Ranma stated to the recording. "She's a friend of some of my crew and they would like to speak to her." Ranma paused and shuddered. "That is unless she's a zombie." A tone is heard and Ranma dropped his head. "That was moronic. A zombie?"

"Yeah." The entire bridge crew agreed.

"Enough of this. Get ready for battle." Ranma ordered.

The entire bridge crew acknowledges the order and scurries off to their stations to get ready to fight.

"THEY WHAT?" Artemis yelled.

The bridge officer that reported the bad news to the white cat cowered in fear. Artemis pounced on him and began to swipe at him with his claws. Luna just shook her head.

"ETA?" Luna asked.

"45 minutes." The ops officer replied.

"Will they have their shields repaired by then?" Artemis asked, never looking up from his maiming.

"Yes sir." Ops replied, adjusting slightly so that he could make a quick getaway if necessary.

Artemis hopped off his prey and back into his seat next to Luna. "Wonderful. Just fuckin' wonderful." He looked to Luna. "It appears that our people, the best operatives in the Federation, have just been beaten by the most rag-tag group of losers in Starfleet."

"What about Mina, Raye and Serena?" Luna asked, defensively.

"Mina was the only qualified officer placed on that ship. I want to retrieve her if possible."

Luna glared at Artemis. "And just blow up Raye and Serena?"

"You know I don't like this anymore than you. I have no interest in killing the girls or any of the other 600 people on that ship but we have a job to do."

Luna continued her glare. "No compromises?"

"What did you have in mind?"

Luna cleared her throat. She had been thinking about this for quite some time. She was having problems sleeping after she began to think about the girls. They didn't deserve to be killed over stupid mistakes. She at first blamed Giles for allowing the crew of the Sisko to board, but then realized that she was the one to blame. If she hadn't implanted Lita none of this would have taken place. She knew that she could not allow the Sisko and her crew to be killed.

"I think the fear of a return visit would be enough to ensure their silence. Not everyone on that ship knows what's going on. Maybe 50 or so officers. We just retrieve our people off the Minneapolis, destroy it, and let the Sisko know that if they breathe a word of this they will have to be terminated."

Artemis rested his head on his paws. He was glad that he had Luna with him. She was a good conscious. He did tend to get caught up in procedure and policy at times. Luna made a good voice of reason. She helped him realize that these are people they were dealing with.

"We'll see how it goes when we get there." Artemis replied.

Luna smiled. She knew she wore the pants in this relationship.

Ops spoke up. "We're being hailed by CB on his secure personal transmitter."

"On screen." Luna ordered.

A picture of Darien appeared. He appeared to be scrunched up.

"Are you in a crawlspace?" Artemis asked, standing up.

"Yeah." Darien replied.

"Why?" Luna asked.

"As I am sure you can see the Minneapolis has been compromised. What you can't see is the fact that Captain Giles refused to return fire on the Sisko when we were attacked.

"I ordered the return fire and he disobeyed. I attempted to take control of the ship and his security team shot me and locked me in my quarters. I am currently crawling through an escape tunnel that we installed for this very reason. I should be coming out on deck two somewhere."

"Where is Lita and JC?" Artemis asked.

"I don't know. JC was on the bridge with me, but he more or less surrendered. LK was confined to her quarters after shooting the cloak."

"Great." Artemis grumbled. This complicated things quite a bit. "Is there anyone on that ship that you are sure will be loyal to us?"

Darien thought for a second. "The ops officer, Lt. Eckland, was arrested for attempting to comply with my return fire order. She might help, but she is being held in the brig which is on deck five."

"I know what deck the brig is on." Artemis shot at Darien. "Get her. If she can help you regain control of that ship then use her."

"A –"Darien whined. "It will be like 50 against two."

"Of for God's sake, Darien." Luna screamed. "When you were Tuxedo Mask you went up against people that were armed with much worse items then phaser rifles and you lived. Work your way down. Get the ops officer out of the brig then go to engineering and take control of the ship from there. There won't be any engineer's right?"

"No." Darien replied. "They were all killed in the explosion."

"Good. Remember, you are only to regain control of the ship. Do not fire on the Sisko and do not kill anyone you don't have to. Report back when you have some more information." Luna ordered.

"FIND LITA TOO!" Artemis yelled before the communication was terminated.

Artemis looked to Luna. "Do you think that they will fall into line like you think the Sisko crew will?"

Luna just sighed and put her head on her paws. "They have to."

"And if they don't?"

Luna sighed. "Then may God have mercy on their souls."

Artemis just eyed Luna for a few moments. He then placed a paw on Luna's back. "You are a good person, Luna." He reached his head over and kissed Luna on the top of her head. He then strolled off and into a turbolift.

"Funny." Luna said to no one. "I sure as hell don't feel like a good person."

"YOU WHAT?" Giles yelled.

Lita backed up slightly. Giles had a very loud voice but his ready room acoustics seemed to make it even louder.

"I'm sorry." Giles said when he realized he startled her.

"It's okay." Lita replied. "Like I said, when I was on the bird of prey I had no ethics controlling my actions."

"Because of the bloody implant?" Giles asked.

"Yeah." Lita nodded. "The Sisko's first officer. I kind of tortured her."

"So you want me to turn you over to them for punishment?" Giles wasn't quite sure why Lita would ask him to do such a thing.

"They are going to be destroyed. I need to make amends before that. I feel that a suitable punishment for me would to be killed along with them. Along side my friends."

"The ops officer, the councilor, and the chief engineer, right?"

"Yes."

"Lita, I really haven't gotten a chance to know you these past few weeks. It's been on purpose. I don't much care for Section 31 operatives. I more or less picture all you guys like Darien." Giles can only grimace at the thought of 50 Darien's running around the quadrant.

"My first reaction is to tell you to piss off and lock you back in you quarters."

Lita frowned.

"However, you do not seem one bit like the other Section 31 cronies. I will honor your request. I don't know if it's the greatest of ideas though. I'd avoid the first officer if I were you though."

Lita smiled. "Thank you, Captain."

Lita began to tear up as Giles came around his desk. Lita gave him a big hug. The pair then walked out onto the bridge.

"STATUS!" Giles yelled.

Ops was the first to reply. "Shields back up to 67%. The Sisko totally fried our phasers and the dorsal torpedo bays. All we have is the ventral stern and aft torpedo launchers and the EM cannon."

"Ugh." Giles groaned. "Get the shields as high as they can go."

"Aye sir." Ops replied. "But we are running on our secondary generators. If they go out, we're dead."

Giles looked at his bridge crew. "Our point today is not to survive. It's to make sure that they survive." He points to the image of the Sisko on the view screen.

"Lita will be leaving us shortly." Giles stated.

Chronister looked up from the panel that he was working on. "Steve –"he began. Giles shook his head.

"I know that the only thing they will be taking alive is Lita. I am hoping that if she is aboard the Sisko they won't destroy her. Besides, this is Lita's request. She wants to make amends to her friends and the people that she hurt."

Lita walks over to Chronister and gives him a hug. "Thanks for everything. You've been really good to me and actually tried to help me deal with all of this." Lita flailed her arms. "If I am forced to continue this life, I need to make sure that I know that my friends don't hate me."

Chronister nods.

"Hail the Sisko." Giles ordered.

Ranma's image popped up on the screen. Ranma was the first to speak.

"How did you guys get an answering machine?"

Giles just laughed. "It's simply to confuse people."

"I see." Ranma grinned.

Shampoo comes running into the shot, promptly knocking Ranma to the deck. "I SEE DEAD PEOPLE! YOU DEAD! I SEE YOU BLOWN INTO SPACE! YES I DID!"

Lita took a deep breath and stepped forward. "I was flash-frozen when I was blown out the breech. Your medical team got me into stasis fast enough that the medical staff on Earth was able to revive me."

Shampoo's eyes were full of tears. "Shampoo fix that!"

Lita took in another deep breath. "This is why we are hailing you, Captain. I would like to remand myself into your custody."

Ranma crawled back to his feet and cocked his head. "My custody?"

Lita nodded. "I hurt your crew, and I need punishment. I want to transport myself to your ship, where you may find a suitable punishment for me. All I ask is that first I get some time alone with Raye, Serena and Mina to try and explain my actions."

"WHAT ABOUT SHAMPOO?" Shampoo screamed.

"Commander. I cannot expect you to forgive me. Which is why under Starfleet Uniform Military Code of Justice, Section 401 paragraph 11, I am waving my right to trial for torture and attempted murder, and request that you sentence me under the same guidelines."

"That's death." Ranma stated.

Mina popped into the shot, knocking both Shampoo and Ranma to the floor. "Lita – what are you doing?"

"I'll explain everything when I get there, if that is okay with you, Captain."

Ranma stood once again and nodded. "Mousse, send a security team to transporter room two. Raye, Mina, get Serena and meet them there."

Ranma turned back to the screen after helping Shampoo back up. "I have someone else on board who wants to talk to you too."

Lita raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

"Gosnell."

Lita gasped. "Gosnell?"

There was a few moments of silence as Lita just stood, stunned. Giles decided he needed to break the silence. "Captain, we will be ready to transport shortly. Transport off the ship is impossible except in certain locations. Soon as we get to one of them we will contact you."

Ranma nodded. "Sisko out."

Giles turned to Lita. "Ready?"

She smiled and nodded as the two started to walk to the turbo lift. Chronister spoke up.

"Steve. I will take her. You are needed on the bridge."

Giles looked to Lita who nodded again. "Okay."

Chronister and Lita stepped into the turbolift.

Staff turned to Giles from where he was watching from the back of the bridge. "Are you sure that was a good idea?"

"No. But even in the dark ages they honored last requests."

Ops spoke up again. "LK has been transported."

"Good. Shield status?"

"88%." Ops' panel started to chirp. "What the-"

"WHAT?" Giles asked.

"All system functions have been rerouted to engineering!" Ops replied.

"Darien." Giles swore. "James."

Staff didn't have to be told twice. He hit his communicator. "Security teams one through four to engineering immediately. CB has seized control of the ship. Stop him with any means necessary." James began to walk to the turbolift.

As he walked away Giles could hear what was being said to Staff on his communicator. "Sir – Lt. Eckland has been broken out of the brig as well. We have three officers down."

Staff acknowledged the message.

"Be careful." Giles ordered.

Staff nodded and entered the lift.

"Try and regain control."

Ops nodded, and then gasped. "Shit. Federation ship uncloaking 2-3-1 mark 2-0."

"Crikey." Giles replied.

"Federation ship decloaking off their port aft!" Mousse yelled.

"Is she on board?" Ranma asked.

"Yes."

"SHIELDS!" Ranma called. Mousse complied.

"Sir!" The ops replacement called. "The Minneapolis is locking her weapons on us!"

"What the hell?" Ranma grumbled. "Hail both ships!"

Darien appeared on the view screen. "Greetings, Captain!"

"Who are you? Where is Captain Giles?" Ranma asked.

Darien laughed. "He's on the bridge however I am in control of this ship now. Prepare to die!" The screen went back to the forward view from the Sisko.

The Minneapolis began to move forward and upward. Suddenly several torpedoes are fired from the bottom of the ship. Each torpedo hit the forward shields of the Sisko, rocking it hard.

"Shields are holding!" Mousse screamed.

Ranma stood and sighed. "Return fire-"He is interrupted by Shampoo.

"LOOK!"

The second ship began to fire on the Minneapolis.

"What the hell?" Ranma asked. "Hold your fire!"

Shampoo simply shrugged as Mousse complied.

"Target the second ships phaser array." Ranma ordered. "Fire when ready."

Mousse complied and fired. "No damage, and they are targeting us now."

Ranma groaned. A fierce blue beamed slammed into the Sisko. It didn't however shake the ship. Mousse started to flip out though.

"SHIELDS DOWN! ALL WEAPONS OFFLINE!"

Ops continued the list. "IMPULSE OFFLINE! WARP OFFLINE!"

"What the hell was that?" Ranma asked.

The ship fired the same weapon at the Minneapolis.

"It's some sort of electromagnetic weapon!" Mousse stated. "The Minneapolis has been rendered in the same shape we are in."

Suddenly several figures began to transport onto the bridge. All in all 18 Starfleet Security personnel appeared, their weapons trained on the bridge crew.

"No one move." The head security officer ordered. "Anyone tries anything and this ship will be destroyed."

Ranma nodded to his bridge crew for them to comply with the order.

Some of the security officers moved the Sisko crew away from their stations and had them sit in the middle of the bridge. They had Ranma and Shampoo sit in their chairs. They then went and locked out the bridge stations that they allowed their operators to stay at.

"Glad that other ship was here to help." Ryouga grumbled to himself.

"I'm Captain Ranma Saotome. Who are you people?"

The head security guard lowered his weapon and went over to speak to Ranma.

"We're with Starfleet Intelligence. If you cooperate your ship, and your crew will not be harmed. Where is the rest of your senior staff?"

Ranma shrugged. "They're somewhere on the ship. I think deck two one or three."

"This is deck one." The guard replied.

It was at this time Mina came running out of the turbolift only to be greeted by three phaser rifles.

"See!" Ranma stated.

"Uh-"Mina stated.

"Who are you?" The lead guard asked.

"Commander Mina Aino. Chief Operations officer. What's going on?"

"Ah third in command. Wonderful. Have a seat.' The guard motioned for her to sit in the seat on Ranma's left.

Mina complied.

"Captain?" She asked.

Ranma pointed to the second ship on the screen.

"Our supervisors will be hailing you shortly." The lead guard stated.

Earlier.

Mina, Raye, Serena and three security guards were waiting in transporter room two.

"They're ready." The transporter chief stated.

"Energize." Mina ordered.

The usual pretty transporter effect started and when it was complete Lita was standing there.

"Lita." Mina said as she walked up the pad and gave her a hug. She looked to the security guards. "Please wait outside."

The guards nodded and walked out. Mina looked to the transporter chief. "You too."

He nodded and left.

Mina sat down and had Lita sit down next to her. Serena and Raye also sat down.

Raye was the first to speak. She spoke with a lot of anger in her voice. "You wanted to explain? You wanted to apologize. Have at it. I'm nothing but fucking ears."

Lita was trying her damnedest to keep from crying. She took a deep breath and explained to her friends about her joining Section 31. She explained to them about the missions she went on. She explained to them about Luna and Artemis being in charge. She explained to them about the memory implant. She explained how the implant affected her. She explained how she ended up on the pirate ship. She explained the last few weeks aboard the Minneapolis and what Darien's roll in Section 31 was. She explained it all.

"-and-"Lita could no longer hold back the tears. "And I am sorry for what I did to you Raye. And what I did to you, Serena."

Raye cocked her head. "You shot me."

Lita took a couple of breaths. "You know I have had a lot of hostility towards you ever since-"She cut herself off and looked to Serena who was looking to the floor and twisting her hair between her fingers, obviously trying her hardest not to cry.

"-Ever since you and Darien got together. I couldn't control my hostilities anymore. They all just came out with that one shot. You know how you get angry at someone and you just want to hit them? But your conscious tells you not to. Well, I didn't have my conscious. There was nothing telling me not to shoot you."

Raye found herself for the first time feeling guilty about her relationship with Darien. She was beginning to understand exactly how many people she had affected. She didn't realize she hurt Lita also.

"I-"Serena stammered. "I love you, Lita. I forgive you."

Lita began to cry again as she embraced Serena.

"I also forgive you, Lita." Raye said. She looked at her feet and cleared her throat. "Will you forgive me?"

Lita looked to Serena who nodded to show that she already had. Lita then turned Raye. "I will – I do. I forgive you, Raye."

Suddenly the ship rocked violently. Mina stood. "I have to get to the bridge." She kissed Lita on the cheek and bolted from the room. As she left, Gosnell walked in.

"OH MY FUCKING GOD!" Gosnell exclaimed.

Lita stood and the pair simply stared at each other for what seemed like hours. It was only a couple of minutes though.

Finally Gosnell broke the stare as he ran over and grabbed Lita. He hugged her tight and kissed her passionately. Lita was more than happy to return the affection.

Serena and Raye could only stare wide-eyed as the two continued their show of affection. Neither of them knew that Lita had known Gosnell. Lita was the love of the man who always hit them with water.

Gosnell and Lita eventually broke the embrace and Gosnell began to blubber like a little baby.

"What? How! Why? Who! Where? When!" He stammered.

Lita laughed. "We can talk about it, but I have to go with some people. You can come too."

Gosnell nodded. The four walked out the door and into the corridor. Lita nodded to Serena and Raye.

"I'll come and visit you after work." Serena noted.

Lita nodded and after hugging Serena, they walked off.

Lita put her hands behind her back and stood in front of one of the security guards. Gosnell started to stammer again when he saw the guard putting hand restraints on her.

"What the hell are you doing?" He asked, stepping forward. The other two guards moved in front of him.

"It's okay, Gozz." Lita stated. "Can he come with? I need to talk to him."

The lead guard nodded. And the group of four headed off towards the turbolift.

"What's going on?" Gosnell asked Lita.

"I did some terrible things on the pirate ship. I need to be held accountable for them. I've turned myself over to the Captain."

Gosnell didn't like this. Not one bit.

"So, I don't see you for three years and now that I do get to see you you're going to jail? This is worse than a god-damned Jerry Springer episode!"

Lita sighed. "Not for long though."

"What do you mean 'not for long'?" Gosnell asked.

"My crimes are punishable by death."

Gosnell stopped.

"No way." Gosnell stated. He resumed and caught back up. "No fucking way. I won't let them kill you. The captain and I-"

"Gozz-"Lita interrupted. "Section 31 is more than likely going to blow this ship to bits. All of us included."

Gosnell looked to the floor and continued to walk in silence.

Raye and Serena got into the turbolift.

"Bridge." Raye stated. The computer chirped back a reply.

"Access to the bridge is currently denied under security procedure 213."

"What?" Raye asked.

"What's security procedure 213?" Serena asked.

"How the hell did you become a Lt. Commander?" Raye grumbled. "It means that the bridge has been overtaken by hostile forces."

"So what do we do?" Serena asked.

"We need to go to engineering and attempt to regain control of the ship." Raye told Serena. "Engineering!" She told the turbolift.

The lift complied and the pair was jetted down to the engineering deck. Raye hit her communicator.

"Commander Hino to the brig."

"Ensign Stark here, Commander." A female ensign replied.

"Find as many security officers and quietly as possible and have them report to engineering. Procedure 213."

"Yes ma'am." She replied.

Serena just looked at Raye. She was ready to be a captain. Raye was in the zone. She really had begun to admire her.

"Stop staring at me!" Raye barked.

Serena just started to cry.

The bridge of the Minneapolis had nine of the Roseville's security team on it. Unlike the Sisko though, these officers had restrained the crew with hand restraints. Plus all of the officers were placed on the floor face down.

Shortly there after Darien and Lt. Eckland walked onto the bridge. The guards all trained their weapons on her. Darien waved his hands.

"She's cool." He stated. The guards then lowered their weapons. Darien walked over to where they had Captain Giles.

"Where is LK?" He asked.

"Hell if I know." Giles replied.

Darien chuckled and then kicked Giles in his side. "Where is she?"

Giles gritted his teeth. "She's aboard the Sisko."

Darien lost his smile. "What?"

"She wanted to depart, so I transported her to the Sisko. She said she wanted to die with her friends."

The turbolift doors opened. Luna and Artimis walked out and onto the bridge. Artemis was the first to speak.

"Where's Lita?"

Darien shifted a bit. Artemis had the ability to make even the most fearless of people scared. "Giles sent her over to the Sisko."

Artemis rolled his eyes. Luna smiled.

"Hail them." She ordered.

After a few seconds the bridge of the Sisko appeared. Shampoo, Ranma and Mina was shown, along with a couple of the security team securing them.

"Yes?" Ranma dryly asked.

"Good day, Captain. My name is Luna –"

Luna noticed the captain fidgeting.

"Something wrong?" Luna asked.

"No." Ranma squeaked.

"Good. As I was saying my name is Luna. I and Artemis here are the directors of Section 31. We're sorry we had to meet under these circumstances."

"Me too." Ranma nervously said.

Artemis looked at Luna. He began to speak.

"Captain, something is wrong? Are the security officers scaring you?"  
"No." Ranma cried.

Shampoo grabbed Ranma and put him in the corner. She began to speak. "What you want?"

"We want to negotiate a way out of this that will work for everyone." Luna stated.

Darien eyed the pair of felines. Were they thinking about letting the crew of the Sisko live? He knew that could not happen.

Darien slinked off and went into a turbolift.

"Okay." Shampoo stated. "Get rid of security team, we talk."

Artemis shook his head. "I can't do that until I am sure we are going to have compliance."

"If you no kill us, Shampoo guarantee compliance."

"First off," Luna said. "Where is Lita?"

Mina stood. "She's in the brig. She turned herself over to us to be held accountable for the crimes of torture, kidnapping, and attempted murder of Starfleet Officers."

Artemis looked at Luna. "Very noble."

Luna nodded. "We can assure you, Lita was not responsible for her actions, Mina."

Artemis stepped forward. "Mina, remember how I taught you that there are always two sides to every situation?"

Mina nodded.

"Lita was the unfortunate victim of a failed memory implant."

"She told us as much."

Artemis continued. "She had no real control over her actions. You know she always used to be angry and somewhat temperamental. Well, the implant had her acting on those feelings."

"In other words-" Shampoo stated. "She have no responsibility over what she do with Shampoo?"

Luna shook her head. "No. I promise you though, when we find the captain of that ship he will be dealt with most severely."

Shampoo groaned. She really wanted revenge on the girl. She did understand though that if her mind was being messed with then she really couldn't hold her responsible. After all if there was anyone who knew about messing with peoples minds using one method or another, it was Shampoo.

"Captain." Luna called to the cowering Ranma. "I do hope you will release Lita as soon as possible."

Ranma regained his composure for a moment. "Are you taking her back? It's been made very clear to me that she doesn't want to go back with you. I will not let you take someone against their will."

Mina just looked at the Captain. His sense of honor was something that she had grown to admire greatly.

Artemis shook his head. "No. All I have ever wanted for her is for her to be happy - all of the girls. Lita was happy working for us. Not anymore. She can be with her friends on your ship, if that is okay with you."

Ranma nodded.

"You have authorization to give her a field commission of Commander and place her in your crew."

Ranma nodded again.

"What about them?" Shampoo asked, pointing to the fleet of security guards on the bridge.

"Again, once we are sure of compliance they will leave but we need to make sure of a couple of other things." Artemis replied.

"You must delete any log entries of this encounter. You must delete all sensor data. Any personnel with detailed information of this encounter must be sworn to secrecy." Luna stated. "If anyone talks about this, your entire crew will have to be terminated."

Ranma nodded. "Consider it done. What of Captain Giles?"

Artemis sighed. "He and his incompetent crew will be brought back to Earth and placed in new positions. I assure you they will be unharmed."

"And Darien?" Mina asked.

"He will remain with Section 31. Regardless of anything else, he is still one of our best and more reliable operatives."

"Uh- Sir – Ma'am-" A security officer stated.

Luna turned to him.

"CB just transported to the Sisko."

Luna groaned. "Captain, if you would retrieve him for me, I would be ever so grateful. You can use our security team, if you wish."

"I would just as well prefer that they vacate my ship." Ranma affirmed.

"Very well." Luna stated. She meowed some orders and the security team vanished. Ranma stood up. "When we catch him, I'll call you."

Luna nodded and the transmission was ended.

Mousse ran up to his terminal and started to hit some buttons. Ranma started to speak.

"Computer, cancel procedure 213."

Shampoo issued an order to the computer. "Intruder alert."

Some alarm bells started to sound.

"Found him." Mousse stated. "He'd working his was through the Jeffries tubes. Looks like he is heading to Engineering."

Ranma nodded. "Shampoo – Mousse."

Both officers nodded and headed off to the turbo lift.

"Mina, will you go get our guest out of the brig and assign her quarters?"

Mina nodded.

"Oh, one more thing." Ranma said as Mina stood. "Let's let her relax for a while. Don't let her know about the commission."

Mina nodded again and ran off.

Ranma sat down in his chair. He looked to Ryouga.

"You sure have been quiet, Ensign."

"Yeah well, why have you been avoiding Akane? Isn't she good enough for you anymore? And another thing –"Ryouga was interrupted.

"I didn't say start talking." Ranma mused.

Ryouga turned back to his panel and mumbled some anti-Ranma swear words to himself.


	7. Resolution

**CHAPTER SIX: RESOLUTION**

Darien grumbled to himself. He had quite enough of crawling through crawlspaces for one day. He knew though that he would meet too much resistance that he would not be ready for if he transported right into engineering.

Since that wouldn't work he figured he would transport into an area of the ship where there would be no one.

Most people on a battleship aren't really interested in looking at plants. So he transported himself into the arboretum. Unfortunately he transported himself right on top of a Regalian Sting Bush. Now he had sting marks all over his legs.

It's a small price to pay though he thought. He made it to the Jeffries tube with no resistance. As a matter of fact he didn't even see one crew person.

He was working against time now though. They had discovered him and sounded an intruder alert. Now every single security officer on this ship had the sole purpose of stopping him. Considering this is a battleship that amounted to about 200 of the 500 plus crew.

Darien wasn't worried though. He knew that they were expecting him to attack the bridge. That's the control center of the ship. Darien's plan though wasn't to take control of this ship. His sole goal was the destruction of the Sisko. The quickest way of doing that would be via the engine room. One good high-level blast into the warp core would destroy the Sisko in about 20 seconds. Just long enough for him to transport off.

He had hoped to find Lita first. Even though it was pretty obvious that she hated him, he still cared for her. He had once pondered the idea of a romantic relationship between the two of them, but she was too loyal to Serena to allow that to happen.

It turned out for the best though. He had always had a thing for Raye. Once he realized that she had a thing for him too, well nature took its course.

He felt bad when he had to leave her. Section 31 had a deep cover assignment for him though. Even though he didn't like it that was the life he chose.

Darien slid out of the latest tube he was in and out into a junction point. He stretched out and looked at his PADD with a map of the Sisko. Another seventy five meters and he would be in a thruster control room. There he would disable the Sisko's navigational thrusters, then storm engineering.

Darien crawled into the next tube and began his slithering down it. It moved at a slight downward angle, so it was a lot less work to move down than the others.

He soon reached the end. He pulled one of his phasers out and had it ready to shoot anyone he saw. He opened the hatch and slid out.

No one.

The room was empty. He peaked out of a window into main engineering. It was empty as well. He looked to the engine core.

"Shit." He said to himself. The containment bulkhead was down. He couldn't believe that the damage he did firing on the Sisko earlier could have been bad enough for the bulkhead to seal. He set down his hand phaser and grabbed his phaser rifle. He slinked out the door and checked all of engineering.

Empty.

Darien backed over to the bulkhead controls. He checked the status screen. The atmosphere on the other side of the bulkhead was fine.

Darien punched in some buttons and raised the bulkhead. Suddenly Mousse, Shampoo, and about twenty security guards came from around the corner.

Darien quickly powered up his rifle and pointed it at the dilithium chamber.

"If you shoot me I will still be able to fire." Darien stated.

"DROP YOUR WEAPON" Mousse ordered.

Darien smiled and started to lower his rifle. As the team moved in he shook his leg. A grenade fell out. Darien dove for cover as it beeped twice and exploded.

The blast sent people flying in every direction. Several of Mousse's security officers are killed in the blast. Others seriously injured. Mousse managed to avoid the blast. He looks around.

"SHAMPOO?" Mousse calls out.

"MOUSSE!" Shampoo called back from the far side of engineering.

Darien had Shampoo pinned up against a wall with his rifle in one hand pointed at her and a tricorder on her other hand.

"So, whatcha going to do?" Darien gestured towards the warp core. On the dilithium chamber hatch there was an explosive.

"You can save your girlfriend here." Darien grinned. "Or you can save your ship."

"SHAMPOO NOT HIS GIRLFRIEND!" Shampoo yelled, defiant to the very bitter end.

"Whatever." Darien spat.

Mousse and a couple of the security officers that were remaining trained their weapons on Darien.

"You're insane!" Mousse yelled.

"You're confusing patriotism with insanity!" Darien laughed. "I SWORE to protect the Federation at all costs! Your crew has knowledge that they shouldn't have! That makes you all a threat. You must be eliminated."

"Darien." Raye's voice called.

Darien only moved his eyes so he could see Raye standing off to his right. "Hi Raye."

"Darien. Please. Don't." She said, tears forming in her eyes. "We can all get out of this and maybe make things back to the way they were before."

Darien shook his head. "No, Raye. They cannot ever go back to the way they were before. I love you, but I have a duty."

"Duty?" Raye asked, almost mockingly. "You didn't give a damn about duty when you ditched Serena for me."

Darien just laughed. "That wasn't a duty."

"Then what was it?" Serena asked from behind Raye, her eyes narrow and full of anger, not something that was ever in Serena's bright blue eyes.

"Hey meatball head." Darien grinned. "Why would it be duty? A person and their decisions make destiny. Would you have rather I stuck with you and then the both of us could enjoy a happy loveless life together?"

The anger in Serena's eyes faded and was replaced by something she had become used to having in her eyes - pain. She began to cry. "But I loved you!"

"That's my point! I didn't love you. Not for my lack of trying mind you. I put up with all of your nonsense. Dealt with all of the lousy grades, the whining, the jealousy, the saving your ass all the time. Why did it have to be about you all the time? Why couldn't I have what I want?"

Mousse decided to use the girls' distraction to slink over to the bomb planted on the warp core. Darien saw this out of the corner of his eye however.

"Move one step closer and I waste the chick." He ordered.

"MOUSSE STOP BOMB!" Shampoo yelled.

Mousse was torn between the duty he had to protect the ship and his love for Shampoo. The love got the better of him and he stepped away from the bomb.

Darien grabbed Shampoo by the collar and threw her over to where Mousse was standing. He then hit one button on his tricorder and the bomb began to beep. A display showed they had twenty seconds.

"I'm sorry Raye." Darien said.

Those words nailed Raye right through her heart. She could only drop to her knees and cry.

Serena remained standing though. She drew her phaser and with her eyes now empty, shot Darien.

Darien grimaced in pain as the blast went though his entire body. He dropped the tricorder but held onto the phaser rifle. He fired it at Shampoo.

Mousse moved like lightning and knocked Shampoo to the ground. The blast went past them and hit the bomb. It sparked and blew up, knocking the remaining security officers out.

The explosives in the bomb did not blow though. They remained affixed to the warp core. The detonator, however, was destroyed.

Mousse knew what would happen next. A phaser shot to the raw explosives would end this. It would blow the warp core and the entire ship. Mousse began to run to Darien.

Darien turned to Serena and fired a shot. This at the same time as Serena fired a second shot. Darien's shot hit Serena in her side. She fell to the ground unconscious.

Serena's shot hit Darien in his left arm - the arm that he had been holding the phaser rifle in. Darien dropped the rifle. He then turned and saw Mousse charging at him.

Darien reached inside of his jacket and pulled out one of his roses. He backhanded it at Mousse.

Mousse came to a stumble-stop as the rose penetrated his neck. He opened his mouth to cough. When he did, he coughed up blood.

Mousse dropped to his knees. He was trying to speak but he couldn't. Every attempted only managed to spit up more blood. The rose pierced his larynx.

Shampoo screamed. She scrambled over to Mousse and pulled the rose out of his neck. She noticed that Darien was moving to pick up his rifle again. He was going to fire on the warp core.

Shampoo decided that was not going to be an option. She took the rose and with all her power threw it at Darien.

Darien screamed as the rose went deep into his chest. His eyes were wide open as he looked at Shampoo who was glowing red with fury. She slowly walked towards him.

Darien tried his best to hold onto the rifle. He pointed it at Shampoo and fired.

The shot hit Shampoo dead center. Darien turned white when Shampoo did not fall, as she should have. His phaser was set on kill. She continued to walk towards Darien. Her fists clenched.

Darien fired again. Again the shot hit Shampoo dead center and she did not fall. Darien was starting to black out. The rose had torn a hole in his lung. He could hardly breathe.

Darien looked up and could see Shampoo still marching towards him. Shampoo was beginning to stagger though. Darien felt that he had enough for two more shots. One shot to kill the purple haired Amazon and another to destroy the Sisko.

Darien brought his rifle to bear again. He began to move his thumb to the trigger when he was tackled from his right side.

Raye knocked Darien to the ground. She began to try and pry the rifle from his arms. She was having trouble though. She was weak from the heartbreak before.

"Raye-"Darien grunted.

Raye ignored him. Unable to get the rifle from him she did the only thing left she could do.

Raye began to twist his arms and finally got it so the rifle was pointed right at Darien.

Darien looked into Raye's eyes. "I do still love you."

A tear fell from Raye's eyes and landed on Darien's face. She then closed her eyes and pushed the trigger.

Darien let out a light scream as the blast hit him.

Raye felt Darien's muscles relax and his grip let go of the rifle. She flung the rifle across the room. Never opening her eyes she leaned back and sat next to her former lover.

Raye finally opened her eyes and looked at Darien. His eyes were still open, void of all life. Raye looked right into his eyes and began to cry again.

"I-"She stammered. "I'm sorry."

She put her head down on his chest and cried.

Shampoo had fallen to her knees. She managed to crawl herself over to Mousse's limp, bloody body. She hit her communicator.

"Shampoo to sickbay. Multiple medical emergency in engineering."

Akane's voice acknowledged the call and informed her that she was on her way.

Shampoo looked at Mousse. He was still breathing, though it was very faint. She took his hand. He looked up at her.

"Mousse." Shampoo said. Mousse smiled and tried to speak, but the damage to his voice box kept that from happening. Every breath brought up more blood.

Mousse used every ounce of strength he had and leaned towards Shampoo slightly, placing his hand on his heart. He then slowly moved his hand and touched Shampoo's chest.

Mousse then spit out his last blood filled breath, and went totally limp.

Shampoo began to cry. "I love you too, Mousse." She cried and put her head on his chest and Akane and her medical crew began to fill the room.

_Captain's log – Stardate 60109.5. Upon the return of Darien Shield's body to Section 31, and their evacuation of the Minneapolis, the Roseville destroyed her. They then cloaked and presumably left the system._

_On board the Sisko, there is no normal for things to return to. Our Chief Engineer is in sickbay recovering from massive internal injuries sustained in the engineering altercation. Commander Tendo tells me that she is lucky the shot didn't hit her dead center._

_Shampoo has been released from sickbay. Commander Tendo says it's amazing that she isn't dead as well. She took two direct shots from a phaser at full power._

_Commander Hino is spending some time by herself. She has requested her two weeks of shore leave that she has available. She opted to take them and just stay in her quarters._

_Sixteen security officers were killed in the altercation, and another seven are in sickbay with major injuries._

Ranma paused. He did not care for having to note deaths. Especially deaths of people that he felt close to.

_Lieutenant Mousse was also killed in action. May the record show that he fought bravely and died defending this ship and her crew. _

Ranma paused again. There would be no record. He knew that in accords with his agreement of Section 31 that no one must know of what happened. He figured that for the record he would make up some cock and bull story about a group of exiled Romulans that decided to try and take over the ship.

He would not let Mousse's death be in vain.

_Memorial services will be held today at 2100 hours. _

_In regards to Lita Kino, I have not yet informed her about Section 31's decision. Reviewing her record I think she will make an excellent new Chief of Security._

Ranma felt that he was almost betraying Mousse's memory by replacing him so quickly. Ranma had decided that he would wait till after the next mission to inform Lita and the rest of the crew. Their next assignment was so damned routine it almost hurt, so he wasn't worried about needing a Chief of Security.

_We are currently en route to the Brooklyn system to assist Starfleet Medical in transporting supplies from one planet to another. Their ships are too small to get it done in a decent amount of time. With us they can turn 16 two day trips into 2 five hour trips. We should be arriving in a little over a day._

Ranma ended his recording and sighed. It was getting very close to 2100 hours. Ranma disliked the fact that this was the second memorial service he has had to attend in the last two months.

Nifty Star Trek doorbell sound here 

"Come in." Ranma sighed.

The doors opened and Akane stepped in. She was in her full dress uniform. The uniform fit her very well. Ranma could not help but notice this.

"Wow." Ranma stated.

Akane blushed and giggled. "You think it looks okay? This is the first time that I've worn it."

Ranma nodded feverishly. "You look – well, certainly not un-cute."

Akane shot Ranma a look that he gladly accepted.

"Seriously, Akane –" Ranma continued. "You look very good in that uniform."

"Thanks." Akane smiled. "You're quite the stud in your dress whites as well."

Ranma grinned. "Ready to go?"

Akane lost her grin and shook her head. "I'm never READY to go to these memorial services."

Ranma also lost his grin. "Please tell me everyone else is going to survive and that we won't have any more of these."

Akane sighed. "Everyone except Ensign Stratton is stable. He's touch-and-go. The medical ships that we are rendezvousing with will have better equipment on board. If he makes it till then I am sure he will be fine."

Ranma nodded. He made it a point to memorize the service records of every officer that was involved in the altercation. Stratton had been an enlisted crewman for six years when he decided to join the academy and become an officer. He fought in the Dominan War on the front lines. He had more medals for honor and courage than Ranma could even count.

"He will survive." Ranma said as he escorted Akane out of his ready room.

On the bridge all of the third shift officers were on duty an hour early. Ranma decided to have a word with them before he left.

"Everyone." Ranma cleared his throat.

The entire bridge crew turned to him.

"I am sorry that you won't be able to attend the memorial. Let me just make sure that your comrades know how much you appreciate their sacrifice. They all died bravely defending this ship. Never forget that."

A few murmurs are heard and every one nods their agreement to Ranma. He then turns back to Akane.

"Shall we?"

Akane nods and the pair walk into the turbolift.

The cargo bay was filled to capacity with Sisko crew. They all stood in several lines, all wearing dress uniforms. In front of them, towards the back of the cargo bay were seventeen caskets. Each casket was draped with the United Federation of Planets flag. Standing in front of the caskets, facing the crew was the senior staff of the Sisko. Mina, Shampoo, and Raye.

In the crowd were Gosnell and Lita. Gosnell was in his usual pipless Starfleet digs. Since he wasn't really part of Starfleet, he had no dress uniform. Lita was wearing a very nice outfit she had made.

Lita was very close to Gosnell and the pair was holding hands.

Raye turned to Mina. "Where's Serena?"

"They wouldn't let her out of sickbay yet." Mina replied.

Raye sighed. "I hope she'll be okay."

Mina nodded and tightened her stance when she saw Ranma enter the room.

"CAPTAIN ON DECK!" She yelled.

The entire room stood at a somewhat relaxed attention. Ranma walked up to the front and to a podium. Akane took her place as the new fifth in command between Mina and Raye, Serena being fourth in command, but absent, and Raye being sixth.

"Good evening." Ranma said.

"We are here tonight to honor the memory of our fallen shipmates - Our crewmates, our friends who died defending this ship, and in turn, defending the Federation.

"We all take an oath to protect the Federation even at the cost of our lives. For some of us there is no greater way to go then to die fulfilling that oath.

"We must never forget these seventeen brave men and women. To help with that, by authorization of the Federation Council, I hereby give each of these officers the Federation's highest honor, the Blue Star of Valor.

"Only forty three others have received this award in the Federation's three hundred year history. Now we add these seventeen, to be remembered by us and by generations to come."

A crewman hands Ranma a box with seventeen medals in it. Ranma places each one on each of the caskets except for Mousses. He walks over to Shampoo, whose eyes are filled with tears.

"Shampoo." Ranma said, very quietly. "You knew him longer than I did. Would you like to do the honor?"

Shampoo looked to Ranma and silently nodded.

She took the award from Ranma and walked over to Mousse's casket. She placed it atop the casket, and then dropped to her knees.

"Stupid Mousse." She cried. "Shampoo always loved you."

She remained like that for a moment, then stood and walked back to her position. Ranma walked to her and put a hand on her shoulder. He then walked back to his podium.

"ALL HANDS, ATTENTION!" He yelled.

Every person in the room simultaneously stood at full attention.

"DISMISSED!"

The room then began to empty out. Soon the only ones left in the room were Ranma, Akane and Shampoo. Shampoo simply stood and looked at Mousse's coffin.

Ranma walked over to Akane.

"Did you know-" Akane stated. "That prior to the fight I spent about thirty hours trying to figure out a way to relieve her from duty?"

"What?" Ranma asked. "Why?"

Akane blushed and turned away. "She's too clingy on you. It can't be healthy."

Ranma shrugged. "So what. You have nothing to worry about."

Akane turned back to Ranma. "What do you mean?"

Ranma smiled at Akane and took her hand. "Because I love you."

Akane could only stare wild-eyed as Ranma leaned in and kissed her quite passionately.

Once Ranma completed his kiss he tugged on Akane's arm. "Come on."

Akane was still pretty much speechless. "Where-"

"Out here. It's sad in here. I want to be someplace happier."

Akane allowed Ranma to pull her out into the hallway.

Shampoo sighed as the pair left the room. She had seen the kiss.

"I need to know." Ranma said after the door to the cargo bay closed. "Do you love me too?"

Akane said nothing. She looked at her feet for a minute.

Ranma frowned. Could it be she felt nothing for him?

Ranma started to loosen his grip on Akane's hand. She in return tightened her grip on his hand.

"Yes." Akane said as she pulled Ranma's face to hers and kissed him.

Down the hall Gosnell was standing with Lita. They were watching the two. Gosnell grinned from ear to ear.

"Atta boy." He chuckled.

"You going to ask him?" Lita asked.

"NOW?" Gosnell exclaimed. "I'm not breaking that up. No sir. That kiss, right there, is years in the making! Why, I might as well go back in time and bitch slap DaVinci! It'd have the same effect!" Lita can only give the barkeeper a strange look that appeared to be confusion.

"No worries babe. He'll do it. I am sure. Besides if he won't we can always just live in sin." Gosnell chuckled, but the look from Lita, one that was obviously not confusion, silenced him.

"Uh - We can ask in the morning. I promise."

Lita grinned at her love.

As the pair started to walk off Gosnell took one last look. Ranma and Akane were still kissing. Gosnell laughed to himself as he walked off.


	8. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE – SIX DAYS LATER**

"And by the power vested in me by the Federation Council, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride."

Ranma grinned to Gosnell. Gosnell gave a grin back, and then moved in to kiss Lita - his new wife.

Once the tonsil fishing was complete Gosnell turned back to Ranma. "So, when is your turn coming up?"

Ranma looked over to Akane who was crying her eyes out. It's pretty obvious that this is a trait she had gotten from her father.

Ranma sighed. "I don't know. The admission was a task and a half it's self. I can't even imagine the stress level of then asking her to marry me. Let alone going through with it."

Gosnell grinned. He turned to Lita and smiled at her. He turned back to Ranma. "It's worth it, Captain."

Ranma grinned and nodded. He closed the Federation 'Marriage on Starships for Dummies' book he was using to officiate the wedding. He turned to Lita.

"Mrs. – Uh -" Ranma looked to Gosnell. "What the hell is your last name?"

Gosnell stared off into space for a minute. "I don't think I have one. I'm kind of like Madonna or Cher or The Rock."

"Hrm." Ranma groaned. "Well then Mrs. Kino." Lita grinned at him. "After the honeymoon we'll talk about a position for you here."

Lita's eyes widened. "A position?"

Ranma nodded. "L & A –"Ranma choked when he realized that he had just used their Section 31 names. "Luna and Artemis said that you have been reintegrated into normal old Starfleet and that you could stay here with your friends and new husband. I have been authorized to give you a field commission to the rank of Commander."

Lita and Gosnell shared a kiss again. Lita giggled. Ranma bowed his head.

"I have a tactical officer/chief of security position open. You'd be fourth in command of the ship. It's yours if you want it."

Lita gave Ranma a comforting smile. "He didn't die in vain."

Ranma raised his head and nodded. "Like I said, after the honeymoon."

Lita's grin just got bigger. Gosnell's did as well.

The newlyweds looked at each other and nodded. They proceeded to walk down the aisle while the spectators showered them with fake, environmentally safe rice.

Mina, Lita's maid of honor, walked into the aisle and followed them. Ryouga, Gosnell's best man, also turned down the aisle and walked next to Mina.

Mina sighed. Ryouga watched her out of the corner of his eye.

"Always a bride's maid, never a bride." Mina whimpered.

Ryouga put his hand on her shoulder. "Come on. A super hot chick like you won't be single forever. You just haven't found anyone good enough for you."

Mina smiled at Ryouga as the two followed the couple down and out of the dining hall.

Ranma cleared his throat. "Reception in 10-Forward."

No one seemed to move.

Ranma cleared his throat again. "Free drinks."

The room was cleared in mere seconds. The only one left sitting in her seat was Akane. She looked up at Ranma and smiled.

"Should we tell them?" She asked, playing with the wedding band on her finger.

Ranma shook his head. "This is Lita and Gosnell's moment. No need to step on that."

Akane smiled. Ranma continued. "Besides, I really have no interest in this ship being damaged further by an insane Ryouga."

Akane laughed. "Wanna get drunk?"

Ranma grabbed her arm and ran out of the door with her. "You have to ask?"

10-Forward was a party zone. People were drinking, dancing, making out and pretty much making as big of assess of themselves as possible. It was just a good old-fashioned wedding reception.

Serena, completely healed from her wounds, was doing her normal 'what the hell is that?' dance. Raye was pounding drinks and taking turns hitting on either the boys or the girls. It was really a whom ever was closest thing. Raye knew if she stood up to hit on anyone she'd become very acquainted with the carpeting.

Mina was getting pretty hammered herself. She was sitting at a table with Ryouga. Ryouga was slamming them as fast as the waiter could bring them.

Ranma and Akane were over in the corner drinking and chatting. Akane had what appeared to be a never-ending look of bliss on her face. She was happy. So much happier than she had been in a very long time.

Ranma was talking about something. Who knows what because when he's been drinking he just talks. Not really about anything in particular. She knows that she heard the words 'water, silk, plasma, and Baywatch' in the same sentence, so she knew if she zoned out for a bit he really wouldn't notice.

She took the time to scan the room. She smiled and giggled when she saw Serena dancing. She was glad that she was feeling well enough to twist and contort her body in such odd positions. She giggled a little more when she saw Raye grabbing at two of her nurses. One male and one female. She smiled when she saw Ryouga and Mina sitting together - sitting a lot closer together now then when they first got there. She smiled when she saw Gosnell and Lita slow dancing by the window, Lita resting her head on Gosnell's chest, the two of them dancing very slowly even though it was a upbeat song. She realized they were just so happy to be holding each other nothing else really mattered.

She scanned the room again. There were lots of people that she knew by seeing them, but didn't know their names. She did notice one person who was not there.

"- my dad said - hic Mr. Tendo loved her - hic and pop goes - hic the weasel?" Ranma stammered. Akane scowled at him.

"Where's Shampoo?" She queried.

Ranma looked around before he realized that he knew the answer.

"Oh – She want bridge be on." Ranma slurred.

"Oh." Akane frowned for the first time that day.

Shampoo was slumped down in the captain's chair. She sat there staring at the star field whisking past the ship as it headed towards Starbase 332 for minor repairs and replacement crew members.

Shampoo's eyes were empty. She had never felt so much pain and sadness before in her life. Not only had she lost someone that she did care about, but she never bothered to tell him how she felt.

Not until it was too late.

It wasn't until after it happened that she realized her post-mortem confession hurt her more than it helped her. Saying 'I love you' to the man who died protecting her after the fact hurt her.

Shampoo sighed. The stars were hypnotic. All she could do was stare at them. Just like many others who have sat in that chair.

The stars were an escape.

The stars didn't judge her. They didn't remind her how cruel she always was to him. They didn't remind her of all the times she phasered him after he glomped onto some random crew person thinking they were her.

Shampoo chuckled at that thought. She couldn't remember once when he got it right. She remembered him mistaking Ranma for her. She remembered him mistaking Akane for her. She could even remember him mistaking her two-foot tall great grandmother for her.

She chuckled again – this one seeming a little bit more forced.

She told herself that she would not cry. Not on the bridge of all places.

She sniffled.

"Are you okay?" A female voice brought Shampoo out of her trance.

"A-Akane." Shampoo stuttered. "Why you no at party?"

Akane looked at the stars and back to Shampoo. "Ranma's passed out." Akane grinned at the memory of having to get security to drag his unconscious body back to his quarters. She quickly lost her grin though.

"I –"Akane was lost on how to phrase this. The two of them had been rivals for Ranma for so long. This was the person that just seven days ago she was plotting against.

This wasn't the time for rivalries though. Shampoo was in pain. Akane wasn't experienced with this type of pain, but she did know pain.

"I was worried about you." Akane continued.

Shampoo sighed and turned back to the view screen.

"Shampoo be okay."

Akane watched the Amazon for a few seconds. She then put her hand on Shampoo's shoulder. Shampoo sniffled again.

Akane stood and slowly walked back to the turbolift. She paused to take a look at the tactical station. She looked at the Lieutenant manning the station. She stared at the black armband he and all other members of the Sisko's security detail were wearing. She sighed and turned back to the turbolift.

"Akane –"Shampoo called from her seat, never turning away from the viewer.

Akane turned around. "Yes ma'am?" She stated, surprising herself. She had never before cared about the fact that Shampoo was her Commanding Officer.

"Akane. Thank you." Shampoo finished.

Akane smiled to her self, then turned and boarded the lift.

"Deck four." She ordered as the lift doors closed.

Shampoo allowed herself to slump down farther. She closed her eyes and silently cried.

A fairly annoying beeping noise awoke Mina from one of those very deep had-too-damn-much-to-drink sleeps.

Mina leaned over her bed and hit a button on her nightstand. The beeping stopped and the computer began to speak.

"Good morning, Mina." The computer said. "It's 0600 hours! You have one hour to get dressed and to your post."

"Ugh." Mina complained. Mina pulled the covers off of her and slid out of bed. She noticed something was wrong right away.

"I'm naked?" She asked herself. Mina never slept naked. She was always worried that they would have to abandon ship in the middle of the night and she would be forced into an escape pod before she could grab any clothes. It was silly but that's the way she felt.

Mina decided to shrug it off. She came to the conclusion that she was just so tired and drunk that she slid out of her dress uniform and her Starfleet issue underwear, and then fell asleep before she could put on her usual boxer shorts and tee shirt.

Mina groggily walked into the bathroom and put toothpaste on her toothbrush. She brushed her teeth for about 10 minutes before realizing that she was standing there in the dark.

"Lights – 30 percent." Mina sputtered. The computer complied and the lights came on, albeit dim. Mina squinted though. Her hangover decided that 30 percent was still to damn bright.

Mina knew that she couldn't get ready for work with it any darker though so she dealt with it.

The blonde gargled some water to rinse the toothpaste out of her mouth. She spat it out. She looked in the mirror. She noticed something in her hair that wasn't her normal red bow.

"A bandana?" She queried.

She could remember hanging around with Ryouga most of the night. She came to the conclusion that he had given it to her as a gift.

"Sure was nice of him." Mina grinned as she stepped into her sonic shower. She activates it and spends about 10 minutes in it.

Mina steps out and walks back to the mirror. She sighs. "Sure do miss water showers." She grumbles.

Mina walks out of the bathroom and over to a dresser where she gets some underwear and puts it on. She then walks over to her closet and finds a uniform.

Once dressed Mina walks to her full-length mirror and takes a look at her self. All she needed to do now was put her red bow in her hair and apply her communicator and her pips.

She walks over towards her dresser and trips on a pair of boots. They weren't hers. These were men's boots.

"Who the hell do these belong to?" She asked herself not expecting to hear an answer.

She got one though.

"Do you have to make so much noise?" A male voice called from her bed.

Two plus two never added up so fast before in her life.

"ENSIGN HIBIKI?" Mina screamed.

Ryouga shot right up in the bed and looked around. He looked at Mina.

"Co-Co-Co-Co-" Ryouga stuttered. He looked underneath the covers and started to blush.

"RYOUGA!" Mina screamed again.

Ryouga looked at her. "Why are you in my quarters?!" Ryouga exclaimed.

Mina simply glared at him. "YOU are in my quarters. IN MY BED!"

Ryouga freaked out when he realized what was going on.

"COMMANDER! SORRY!" Ryouga hopped out of the bed and bolted out the door. Naked as the day he was born.

Mina dug around and found her communicator. "Commander Aino to Sickbay."

"Yes ma'am?" A tech said.

"I am going to be in there in a few minutes."

"What's wrong?" The tech asked.

Mina blushed. "I need the shot."

Mina glowered when she heard the tech laugh. "Better hurry before we run out. A lot of people have been getting the shot this morning."

Mina shook her head. "Understood. Aino out." She hit her communicator again.

Mina remembered the captain telling her about Ryouga's sense of direction. She'd seen it first hand from the times he'd gotten them lost in space.

"Commander Aino to Security."

"Yes ma'am." A male voice asked.

"You need to find Ensign Hibiki and take him to his quarters. He's running around the ship naked."

Mina just shook her head when she heard not only the officer who answered the call laugh but several other people in the background laughing.

"Yes ma'am." The officer snorted.

Mina grumbled as she hit her communicator to end the communication. She grumbled as she walked out the door. She grumbled all the way to sick bay. She grumbled all the way up to the bridge. She grumbled the whole daylong.

Meanwhile somewhere in Engineering, Serena was screaming.

"Engineering is no place for a naked man to be! You might get it caught on something!!"

To Be Continued...


End file.
